Post Day 3: Operation Wildfire
by RetiredZimon
Summary: Set between Day 3 and 4. Jack must deal with a rising threat, despite being fired from CTU and currently out of work. He is reunited with old enemies who were never discovered and faced with new challenges.
1. Part 1: Chapters 1 to 6

**_24 Fan Fiction: Day 3.5_**

**_Episode 01: 3.00 a.m. – 4.00 a.m._**

_3.00.24 a.m._

Jonathan sleepily began up the stairs. He had been called by a room at the hotel where he worked. They wanted some food. At 3 a.m.? He wondered why they needed food at such a ridiculous time, but he was glad they had called him; it helped to keep him alert. He was the only person working tonight: the hotel didn't really need more than one person manning the desks at this time of night. Just as he reached the first flight of stairs, a blonde man with his shirt unbuttoned ran past him. "There's some guys breaking into a car downstairs, c'mon!" the man yelled. Jonathan was taken aback: nothing this exciting ever happened. He was reasonably well built, and he thought that with the help of the man he was following they could extinguish any break-ins that might be happening.

The sound of smashing glass had woken up Jack Bauer. His window had been open: the hotel room was intensely hot. He was a light sleeper – always had been – and could wake up at the sound of a pin drop. He looked out his window and as soon as he saw the two men breaking into the car he shook himself awake, grabbed some trousers and his shirt and took off. He hadn't even managed to button up his shirt by the time he was mid way down the stairs. Lucky there was a bellboy there.

The two men reached the front of the hotel, Jonathan getting there first. He was more alert than Jack who had just been sleeping. That was bad news for him. One of the men breaking into the car was keeping watch of the hotel. As soon as he heard the tone of the doors opening, he fired a shot from his pistol. Jonathan was dead instantly. At the sound of the gun, Jack slid round the corner of the hotel. The men had not seen him. He uncovered his gun from his trouser pocket, and spun around the edge of the door, only to find the car half way down the door. He cursed, then cursed louder as he stood in some glass. He glared at his foot; a particularly large piece had wedged himself in it. What a great way to start the day.

Audrey Raines could not sleep. She was worried about her father, Secretary of Defense Heller. He had fired his senior advisor the previous day, and she was worried that he would make some incorrect decisions without guidance. She was his Senior Policy Analyst, but her and her father kept their personal relationship as private as possible. Audrey had not held the position for long, and she wished to make friends with her father's other analysts. She got up and turned on the light next to her bed. She heaved a deep sigh, and got up to get a glass of milk. Her house was large, and the kitchen had a wall covered in windows, looking out over her vast garden and pool. As she began to drink, a hand found her shoulder. She choked on the milk as she heard a "Shhh" coming from behind her. She turned around to find her husband, Paul stood there.

"God, Paul! You terrified me." Her voice wavered.

"I heard you get up, I came to see what was wrong." He stroked her hair. She knew where this was going.

"Paul, I told you. We are staying in separate rooms for a reason." The couple were having problems, and Paul had actually moved out. The businessman had to move out of his apartment due to a fire in an adjacent flat, leading him to move back in with Audrey. However, she was making sure he staying away; she had no intention of rebuilding a relationship with him. She wanted to tell him about the divorce papers she had had hidden in her drawer for the past three weeks, but worried for his reaction. She decided to tell him later in the day.

She went back to her room, and forced Paul back to his. His turquoise eyes turned to slits as he yawned, and closed the door to his make-shift room in Audrey's lounge.

From his spot behind a garden bush, a man observed the whole event.

_3.16.26 a.m._

Jack had decided it was probably best to go to a hospital. His foot was throbbing, and seeing as he wouldn't be able to drive with it, he had to walk. Luckily, the hospital was only fifteen minutes away from his hotel, and he arrived just after 3.15 a.m. To Joanne, the receptionist at the hospital, the man looked very strange. He was wearing no shoes, and had blood over the bottom half of his right leg. He had only a few buttons done up, and has a peculiar shaped lump coming from his pocket.

"Can I er… help you?"

"Yeah, I need to see a doctor about this." He swung his leg up onto the counter, almost hitting Joanne in the face. His wound was much worse than it had been at the hotel. He had tried not to walk on it, but occasionally had done, which pushed the glass further into his foot. The nurse led him off to a side room.

Kim woke up with a start. She thought she heard a gunshot. She turned over in bed, and noticed Chase was not there. Her heart pounded. She silently got out of bed, and crept over to the door. As she walked along the hallway of Chase Edmund's apartment, she realized what she had heard. As she expected, Chase was sat in front of the television watching a late night movie.

"Hey Kim… I didn't know you were up?" Chase inquired, clearly with no interest: or knowledge of what time it was.

"What the hell are you doing watching movies at this time?" She indicated the clock. He glanced at it, but didn't react. "Could you at least turn it down?" He hit the button on the remote, and Kim went back to bed. She couldn't sleep though. She looked through her contacts list on her mobile phone, and found her father. She wondered what he was doing right now.

"Dammit! What is that?" Jack yelled, as Doctor Briggs injected a syringe full of substance into his swelling foot.

"It's to numb the wound, the pain will be much less when we have to remove the glass". Jack rolled his eyes. His last few months had been terrible. He had been forced to attend drug rehabilitation clinics, which had not been so bad. But that had led to many problems. The new bitch leading CTU, Erin Driscoll, had fired him. She was a no-nonsense District low-leveler who had decided to take up leading the government agency. Since then, he had not managed to find another job. He lived off his savings. He had lost his house after being in rehab: he couldn't keep up the mortgage whist he was there had had to sell it off. Now, he moved from hotel to hotel, trying to find a job, or something to do with his life. He desperately wanted to be back in the field, but no one seemed to want him. The word of Erin Driscoll must have spread across everywhere: the FBI, Secret Service, he couldn't even get a desk job.

The doctor picked up a worryingly large pair of what appeared to be garden pliers and clamped the biggest piece of glass. Jack braced himself.

_3.32.56 a.m._

CTU was quiet at this time of night. There were never any threats coming in; the only thing that needed to be done was paperwork from the previous day. At this sort of time there were only ever a few people there. Those people were usually new to CTU; the older, more established analysts making them work the boring, disorienting night shift. Tonight, those analysts were Edgar Stiles, a large but nervous man in his early 40s who had started about a month ago, and Andrew Putney, a thin, industrious man who transferred over from Division a week or so ago. They were making small talk.

"What's the most interesting thing that has ever happened to you whilst working for the government?" "How did you get into the job?" "What do you aspire to become?"

Suddenly they heard to familiar buzz of someone being let into the building. This was an unusual occurrence at this time of night. The men looked at each other. Edgar's forehead began to perspire. They stood up and walked towards the entrance. A friendly looking man walked into the large office of CTU, walking around as if he knew the place. He hardly even noticed the two men staring at him. He suddenly came into consciousness.

"Oh, hi! Sorry, I didn't see you there!" He blurted. His blonde hair bounced as if the man had spent hours preparing it. "I've been sent here from District to collect information on any threats you might have discovered." The man waited eagerly. Edgar and Andrew exchanged a glance.

"I'm sorry but I'll need some sort of identification." Edgar inquired.

"Sorry, of course!" The man fiddled around in his pocket before displaying his badge.

"Jack Bauer?" Edgar questioned. "I've heard of you… Chloe O'Brian talks about you all the time!"

"Oh yeah… Chloe. We've been friends for some time now." He shot a glance around the room. "Just the two of you?"

"Yeah, they just make new people stay here for the overnight shift so they all get their beauty sleep!" Andrew joked. His visitor didn't seem in the mood for laughs. He asked again about any new threats.

"Well, no, we don't have anything to report. But they should know that at District right? All of our channels are filtered through your systems?"

"Yeah, well there's been a crash on Mainframe 5 where we keep our login data from this branch of CTU. It'll be fixed in the morning; it's just there isn't anyone around to do it at this time of night."

The visitor thanked the men after they had proved to him there were no new threats displayed on their system. He departed, leaving the room echoing of the buzz that accompanied someone leaving the facility. "There was something weird about that guy…" Edgar pondered to himself.

Once he was outside the building, Michael Skinner pulled off his wig and yanked a phone out of his pocket. As he dialled the number for his boss, he threw the fake I.D. into a dumpster and left the wig on the floor. Someone picked up at the other end.

"It's me. There's nothing to worry about." He informed. "CTU doesn't have any new threats, so nothing concerning our mission has been compromised."

"Good," replied his superior, "Then everything shall go on as planned."

"I'll see you soon at our discussed meeting point." The call was ended as quickly as it was begun. Michael couldn't believe how stupid the CTU agents were: they fell for his plan so easily. He has a whole discussion lined up ready, but they fell at the first hurdle. Knowing they were going to people who had never met Jack Bauer, the real Jack Bauer, he could easily fool them. Michael put the mobile phone to the floor and stood on it, crushing the battery and any chance of a trace. He threw it in the dumpster, and it landed alongside the fake District badge of Special Agent Jack Bauer.

Kim was still awake. She was thinking about how the rift between her and her father had been growing bigger ever since he found out about her and Chase. She wished she could take back some of the things she had said to him: she needed a parent… losing her mother was hard enough, and then to drift away from her father seemed like a waste. She resolved to call him later in the day, see if he wanted to have lunch or something. She rolled onto her side and smiled at the good times that were to come.

_3.45.21 a.m._

Edgar Stiles was still nervous about the man from District. He had never heard Chloe mention anything about her good friend Jack Bauer working there. He scratched his head, and sat down on his blue, soft chair. He slapped a few buttons and found the number for the headquarters of Los Angeles District Office. He dialled the number.

Michael felt a buzz in his pocket. "Dammit!" He had set a tracker on the number for District, just in case those idiots from CTU tried to call there. And they had done. He pressed a few buttons in quick succession and the ringing ended.

Edgar looked down at his phone. He couldn't understand what had just happened: the call had just been cut off. He looked over to Andrew and explained his concerns. But before he could finish, the lights blacked out. Andrew yelped, but Edgar assured him. "Don't worry. Emergency systems lights will reboot in around 10 seconds."

As promised, the lights came back up, but at a lower capacity to before. Edgar surveyed the room. His computer monitor had been shut down, and he assumed Andrew's had too. Sweat gushed down his face. He had no idea what to do: the power had been cut, so he couldn't call anyone for help. He had never been trained on what to do in such a situation as this. He remembered: the only way the power systems can be shut down is from a series of buttons in the entrance way. At night there was a guard there: everyone would have to go past them. Tonight Harry was working there: he was an older man who had served CTU for over 30 years. Edgar dashed out to ask him about what had happened.

The large man stumbled as he saw the dead body of Harry, shot through the chest. His eyed welled up: Harry had been the first person Edgar had ever met at CTU, he had told him who people were when he was confused, where to go… what to do. Then the cause crept into his mind: the man who was there couldn't have been Jack Bauer. He would never kill a person. Edgar followed through the events in his mind: Harry would have known Jack Bauer; he probably worked for Jack at some point. When the man came and Harry didn't recognise him, he was shot. Andrew caught up behind him and fell over. He had never seen a dead body before. The analysts ran outside, but couldn't see anything. Out of the corner of his eye, Edgar saw a glint coming from a dumpster. He went over and saw the laminated badge of one Jack Bauer, along with a blonde wig and a smashed phone. Edgar knew he had to act.

_3.49.38 a.m._

Jack hobbled out of the doctor's office. They had insisted that he stayed so they could treat him some more, but Jack was in no mood for such a thing. He just wanted to get back to his hotel room and get some rest. He remembered the bellboy who had ran out with him, and wondered if anyone had seen the body yet. He decided that when he got back to the hotel he would phone the police and explain the situation. No point in lying, he hadn't done anything wrong. As he got outside the double doors, Jack noticed two men getting out of a car with a smashed window. It was the guys from the hotel, the ones that had killed the bellboy. They had a bag with something in; Jack couldn't make out the logo on it. He briefly considered phoning the police now and telling them what was going on. Instead, Jack made his way across the road, dragged his bandaged foot behind him, and entered the terraced house behind the assailants.

The door led directly to a flight of stairs, so he crept up so as not to be heard. On the steps he saw the brown bag the car thieves had brought up. It had a logo for a local computer store. But that shop wouldn't have been open at this time: they must have robbed it. At the top of the stairs there was just one single, large room. It was painted in a horrible dark brown colour, and there were stains all over the wooden floor. In the centre of the room was a table with eight chairs around it. Jack squinted to see if he recognised any of the men. Then he saw them: he could see the backs of the men who stole the car; he recognised them from their coats.

"Is this the right software?" A deep, grizzly voice inquired.

"Yeah. We got the new database for the... device as well." One of the car thieves replied.

"Very good," the boss answered, "You've been of great help to us." With that, he pulled out a revolver and shot the two men square in the chest. Jack held back a gasp. The power of the bullet sent the chairs falling backwards, and the men's faces were on line with Jack's. He looked on in horror as the last life of the man nearest to him went into facing Jack and giving a look of surprise. Fortunately for Jack, none of the other men were watching. Jack made himself as comfortable as possible, and tried not to look at the dead men as he continued listening to the conversation.

After rechecking the uselessness of the phones at CTU, Edgar and Andrew had chased over to a phone booth across the street. They called up District, and informed them of the situation. After Edgar explained what happened, the voice on the other end of the phone replied "So that means there is going to be some sort of threat to the country today?"

Edgar agreed, and the District agent told him that he would call in as many people as he could to assist the two analysts.

"You've done a very good job this morning," the man congratulated Edgar and Andrew, "You should be proud of yourselves."

"Thank you, thanks a lot Mr..?"

"It's McGill. Lynn McGill."

_3.54.32 a.m._

Jack had heard it all. He knew what he had to do: as much as he hated doing it. He began to go back down the stairs to he could inform CTU of what was happening. As he descended the stairs, he slipped on the bag the car thieves had left. He bashed his against the railings on the stairs, but he didn't have time to submit to the pain. He knew the noise caused would have altered the terrorists upstairs, and he was right. They began to go down the stairs, and Jack narrowly avoided being shot. He hopped into the car left by its previous occupants, and sped away. By the time any of the men from the terraced house had got onto the road, he was a least one hundred yards away.

He knew they would be in pursuit of him soon. Jack twisted and turned the car down a series of alleyways and small roads. He found a large, abandoned warehouse and decided to hide out in there until he had lost the terrorists. He got out the car and took the keys. After sliding into the warehouse, Jack found a series of boxes to hide behind. He waited for felt like forever to see if he could hear anyone coming. No one did. He heard no cars, no guns, footsteps. Jack whipped out his phone and dialled the number for CTU LA, imprinted in his head from years gone by.

Edgar was waiting by the phone for any news of what was happening. The man from District had told him he would send over agents; so where are they? A phone buzzed the familiar ringtone, and Edgar leapt at it. This meant that District had managed to sort out the power problems.

"Edgar Stiles?" the man answered.

"This is Jack Bauer. I have news of an impending terrorist attack!"

Edgar smiled: rookie mistake. The man shouldn't have called back here, and it was even better now that the systems were back online. He set a trace on the call and kept the man talking.

"Have you sorted out the Mainframe at District yet?"

"What? What are you talking about? I need to speak to someone in charge!" Jack was getting irritated. What was this analyst talking about?

"You said Mainframe 5 was down at District, that's why you came in?" Edgar was beginning to get worried. Why would he play it like this?

"I didn't come in, and I have no idea what you are blabbering about. All I know is that I need to tell someone about this threat!"

Edgar decided that the guy must be trying to throw him off whatever the real threat was. Maybe he had figured out we knew he was a fake, so was pretending to be _another_ Jack Bauer. Edgar agreed with himself that was pretty elaborate, and seemed too far. Despite that he kept the man going for enough time to locate him. The analyst discovered he was at a warehouse just downtown. He wrapped up the conversation, telling "Jack" that he would tell his superior when she arrived.

Jack cursed. What the hell was going on? That stupid analyst from CTU didn't seem to be interested in the fact that there was going to be a major terrorist attack today. He had only one option left. He dialled the number for Chloe O'Brian, and waited.

_3.57.04 a.m._

The phone didn't wake her. Chloe had been awake for just over five minutes when the second call came in. At around ten to four in the morning, some guy from high up at District had rung her home, telling her that she had to go into CTU immediately. Something about a possible terrorist threat today. When the phone rang for a second time, she had no doubt that it was going to be something to do with this threat again. She picked up, but there was a lot of interference. She couldn't properly hear who was on the other end.

"CHLOE!" Jack yelled down the phone, but it seemed useless. He resolved that he had to get outside if he was going to let his friend from CTU in on what he had heard the terrorists talking about. He got up and, after checking outside the warehouse that there was no one there, he walked into the alleyway. "Chloe, can you hear me?"

"Jack is that you? What's going on?" There was a hint of fear in her voice.

"Chloe. I just heard some men talking: I think there's going to be something big happening today." Chloe fitted the pieces together in her head. Somehow Jack knew about this threat, and had information on it. "They were talking about plans for an attack later today: they want to burn the forests in the California area... they had projected casualty estimates, gas emissions, the area the fires would cover... I don't know how they worked it all out. It's the WildFires group, run a background check-" Jack felt a hand on his should. His eyes widened.

"That's some pretty heavy stuff Jack... why are you telling me all this? Why don't you just let CTU know?"

But Jack couldn't answer; the man behind him made Jack drop the phone. He stood on it and then threw Jack in the back of a van.

"Jack? Jack?"

The man knocked Jack out as the van pulled away.

_**Episode 02: 4.00 a.m. – 5.00 a.m.**_

_4.00.12 a.m._

Chase slid into bed next to Kim. The action film he had been watched was finished and his eyes were weary with fatigue. He drifted off to sleep almost instantly, thinking about what might happen to him today: he worked as a private security guard in Valencia. The one handed man had quite a threatening persona, so worked well in private security. After he had attached the virus to his hand, he had been rushed off to St. Thomas Hospital. After eight hours of surgery, the doctors hadn't been able to reattach his hand, which made life very difficult for him. It greatly restricted the things he could do, but there was nothing he could do about it: he had learnt to live with it.

He had a group of men working for him at his private security company, and his clients were under constant surveillance. One of them was a very nervous man and felt constantly like he was under threat or going to be shot. Chase smiled to himself; he could see no reason why anyone would want to kill him - he was just a businessman. _But_, Chase thought, _whatever brings the money in_. He fell into unconsciousness.

The man outside Audrey Raines' house had waited until she was asleep. He had a good vantage point from where he was sitting, and decided that she was well and truly gone. _About time_, he thought, _she's been up doing bugger all for hours_. He manoeuvred out of the bush and made his way towards the back door. If either of the occupants of the house were to wake up now, he would be totally visible. He was trying to break in to the door that was on the glass wall: he could be seen from everywhere in the house. Everywhere, that is, apart from where the inhabitants were. He took out a thin piece of wire from his jacket pocket, and fiddled around with it in the lock. He heard a quiet click, and knew he was in. There was no alarm on; Audrey had turned it off when she got up to get a drink and forgotten to turn it back on. The man crept across the main room, and found the vault behind a painting above the widescreen television. The vault had a gap in it, suited for the shape of a key. The man knew where that would be. He made his way over to the bedroom, and looked in the door that was open a touch. He could see the drawer where he had been promised the key would be held. The man rolled his eyes and slid into the room.

_4.08.59 a.m._

Jack regained consciousness, but made sure not to show it. He was in the back of a truck, and his head was throbbing. He heard two men either side of him, and another voice protruding from the driver's seat. His hands were tied together and were above his head. He listened intently to what they were saying. They talked freely, unaware Jack could hear every word they were saying.

"So what're we going to do with him?" One asked.

"If we kill him there will be too much suspicion, let's just throw him out onto the street." Jack was confused by this. Maybe he had got the wrong impression of these people: they might not be the killers he perceived them to be. They could just be fundamentalists standing up against the increasing actions to prevent global warming. Jack thought more into the situation. Burning down forests would not give massive human casualties: it would greatly decrease global oxygen levels. In the forests around California there were not many people living there: maybe ten or less. Jack knew he was onto something when the men began to discuss this very thing.

"We have to make sure there are as little casualties as possible. There's can't be more than twenty people in the area: we aren't murderers!"

"Don't worry; you know we have had this planned for months. You are overreacting just because the time has come for our operation to go underway." Jack was certain he was right now. If only he could somehow contact CTU... but he could think of no way of letting them know. Jack cursed in his head.

Tony Almeida's jail cell was cold and lonely, but he didn't care anymore. He had served his time in jail, and at exactly 11.00 a.m. today he was getting out of prison. It had been the worst seven months of his life. He had been sentenced as a traitor to the United States, just for protecting his wife. There had been many run-ins with other inmates who had heard about him, criticised him for not being a patriot. That's why he had a black eye. And a broken finger. And a worrying lump on the back of his head. But it didn't matter anymore; through the help of the President and Jack Bauer, his execution sentence had been reduced to just over half a year in jail. Quite a good deal really. But his time behind bars had hardened him. He knew that he had been pushing Michelle away, he could feel it. He didn't want to; didn't mean to. But he couldn't help resenting her: this had all been because of her. He tried to tell himself not to blame her, of course it wasn't her fault, but Tony felt like he had to pin it on someone.

He could tell she was more awkward around him now: she visited him much less than she ever used to. He was worried she had been seeing someone else. He stared at a patch on the grey wall that he had scratched into. No lines and crosses showing how many days he'd been in jail, just a random assortment of scratches. He used it as a way to let out his anger. He grabbed a rock and just attacked the wall. People thought he was crazy. He didn't care.

Tony knew he couldn't sleep, but it didn't matter. He would have a nice, soft, warm bed to go to when he got home. And a refreshing, cold beer. He shut his eyes and imagined how good life would be once the next six hours were up.

The man had managed to get into Audrey Raines' safe, and presently he was shovelling out the money into a bag. He heard a click: much like the noise of a light being turned on. His heart began to thud, and he headed for the door. Just as he got outside the house, Paul Raines came to the door. He saw the man running away, and woke up instantly. He ran to the back door and looked out, astonished.

"AUDREY!!" He yelled. She came to the door to see her husband running out the back. After glancing at the open safe, she grabbed a pair of slippers and went out the front. She arrived at the bottom of her driveway just as the man took off. She knew there was no point in chasing him: he was in a car for God's sake. She memorised the license plate and went inside. Then, she was hit by a brick wall: she realised what was in the safe. Running over to the wall, she looked inside; knowing the thing she was looking for would no longer be there.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Paul asked, looking worried.

"That man. He... he took confidential files..." She began to murmur. Paul was desperately interested to know what sort of files she was talking about.

"What files? What did he take, Audrey?"

"It was... information on President Keeler's schedules... all the events, rallies, meeting he has in the next month. The one that only high level personnel can have. And now it's in the hands of a terrorist."

_4.29.45 a.m._

Chloe swayed through the double doors of CTU. On the floor next to the guard's post was a body, covered by a sheet. She blinked, but didn't stop. She wasn't awake enough to think about that. The conversation with Jack kept going over in her mind. As she walked forward she saw the back of her boss' head. She went up to Erin Driscoll.

"Miss Driscoll, I have something to tell you."

"Not now Chloe, I'm trying to co-ordinate with District which personnel they sent over."

"But it's important; it's about today's crisis."

Edgar had noticed the conversation going on between Chloe and Driscoll. He heard Chloe say "Jack Bauer". That means this guy phoned up Chloe and gave her some crappy story too! He headed over to join in the conversation.

"So you are saying - Jack Bauer," she hesitated at saying his name, "contacted you and told you about this threat from a "WildFire" group?"

"Yes, but before he co-"

"Wait, Chloe," Edgar chimed in, "A guy pretending to be Jack Bauer came here –"

Driscoll cut him short. "We know about that Edgar." She rolled her eyes. Getting up at 4 a.m. for this?

"No. After I'd called up District he phoned back! Tried to give me some phoney story about a threat today. I figured he was trying to throw us off the track of the real threat by making up some fake one."

"Edgar, that's wrong. Jack phoned me, I know what he sounds like."

The bickering continued until Driscoll raised her hand in between the two analysts. They stopped immediately. With a deep sigh, Driscoll responded, "Look, we'll just see whether it's Jack or not when he gets here, alright?"

"Look, I understand that he's asleep but I need to speak with my father immediately!" The useless woman on the other end of the phone refused to let Audrey inform her father of the situation. She thought about who else she could call. In her safe, she also had a list of government offices. Luckily, the burglar had not taken that, so she took it out and searched through the lists.

"Audrey, what if it wasn't a terrorist? It could just be that a guy saw a big house and decided to rob it?" Her husband tried to reassure her.

"Come on Paul: what are the chances? They knew where the safe was, they knew where the key was... it must have been planned." She was convinced now. There was no way anyone was going to change her mind. "I mean come on Paul. If it was just any old robber, why didn't he take all the money: there's my life savings here!" She found the nearest government building on the list: CTU Los Angeles. She had the number for it too. She crossed the room and picked up her phone.

"CTU LA, this is Chloe O'Brian," the analyst said wearily from her desk. The team had been dispatched to pick up Jack five minutes ago. They should get there by ten to five.

"Hi, this is Audrey Raines. I'm Secretary Heller's senior policy analyst."

Chloe knew who she was. "Oh, what can I do for you?" No doubt this had something to do with the threat that had been received today.

"Well, this sounds kind of stupid, but my house has just been robbed."

Chloe couldn't see what she should do about that. "Is everything alright?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, everything's fine. It's just; I think there might be some sort of terrorist attack today." Chloe was just about to interrupt, explaining that they already knew that, but the woman on the phone carried on. "You see, the man who was here... took a schedule of President Keeler's events over the next month. I'm worried that they might use it to try and get to the President." This was something that had not been taken into consideration yet.

"Miss Raines, do you want to come in? That'll be easier for you to tell us everything you know."

Jack found out about the involvement of the President at about the same time as Chloe did. The men were talking about it after they had been in the car almost half an hour. Jack worked it out: he felt like the car had been going reasonably fast; maybe 60 miles per hour. That meant they could be 30 miles away by now... how would CTU ever find him?

"Is Skinner really willing to take the fall?"

"He is as much against Keeler as we are."

"Alright then, well call him, and make sure everything is ok on his end."

One of the men whipped out a phone, and Jack heard him putting in some numbers.

"It's Lenny. Are you almost ready?"

Michael Skinner had changed into his suit, and was walking along a corridor.

"I'm ready. Almost there now." He turned a corner onto a more main corridor with many people in suits walking around.

"Ok. Is everything is place?"

"We've been prepared for months. There's nothing to worry about."

The conversation ended. Jack didn't know what was happening in the conversation, or what this "Skinner" was doing. All he knew was it was something to do with Keeler, and he had to let CTU know. Jack thought of a plan: he had no idea if it would work, but he decided to give it a shot. As the van turned a corner, Jack let his body roll over with it. His arms, tied together, fell to his side. He felt in his pocket and thanked the Lord when he felt his phone still in there. He covertly slipped it out and pressed speed dial 6: CTU Los Angeles. Someone picked up, but they got no response. Jack hoped that if the person on the other end of the phone could track the signal, CTU would be able to find him. The men in the back of the van grabbed Jack's arms and hung them back up above his head.

_4.44.39 a.m._

Maya Driscoll woke up screaming. This wasn't an unusual thing: it happened several times a week. In Maya's mind it was just a method of making sure her mother was always there for her when she was needed. That's why Maya got angry when her mother didn't come this morning. She went to her mother's bedroom and found it empty. She had never really known her father, Darren, as he had left when she was seven. She could hardly remember him now: he ran out on the family a few months after she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, leaving Erin to look after their child. She found it hard to sleep at night, which was why she often liked to see her mother and lay in bed with her. When she saw her mother's empty bed she began to get worried.

She searched the whole house, but there was no sign of her mother. That was when the anger ebbed out of her like honey from a beehive, and was replaced by fear. Maya's mind couldn't comprehend what could have happened. She decided that she would go to her aunt's house: it was only a few blocks away. She knew the way. That _must_ be where her mother was.

Maya slowly made her way across the hallway, and went out the front door. Leaving it wide open, she crossed the path and exited the house. She hasn't taken into consideration how hard it would be to find her aunt's house in the dark. That was when she remembered that she had never made the journey without her mother before. Shivering, she began the trek, barefoot and in her pyjamas.

Michael Skinner entered a conference room. He crossed the large hall, filled with people assessing reports and redrafting speeches. At the back of the room was a secured room. It read "Authorised personnel only". There was a woman sat a desk in front of the door, with a computer by her side. She was filing her nails: there wasn't much to do for her. Every so often someone would come in or out of the door, she had to check their name was on her security personnel list, and that was pretty much it.

Before he reached the table at the back, a man came up to him and began blabbering about some report that Michael had not finished. He was agitated but didn't want to arouse suspicion. Reluctantly, he allowed the man to take him to a part of the table with two other men. They sat and began to make some final adjustments on a composition that Michael had carelessly forgotten to finish. He checked his watch. Rolling his eyes, he remembered the words Jameson had told him – "You have to get in room before 5 a.m.," That gave him just under ten minutes, "That's when the meeting will have to begin."

Since leaving her home, Erin Driscoll had not given her daughter one thought: she had barely had the opportunity to. With all the different sources telling her about possible threats, her head was in a spin.

"Miss Driscoll?" Andrew Putney, the man who had been here with the fake Jack Bauer, handed a phone to her, "It's Curtis. He's arrived at the location Edgar tracked."

"Curtis? What have you found?"

Curtis Manning had been rudely awoken from bed. He had had a fight with his girlfriend, Marianne, last night. All he needed was a good night's sleep, but just before 4.30 a.m. he had been called in for a field mission he had to lead. Apparently someone pretended to be Jack Bauer called in about a terrorist threat happening today. "Well, there's no one here Erin."

The CTU director heaved a deep sigh. But before she could interject, Curtis continued. "We did find something though. There's a smashed phone here, but we managed to retrieve the SIM card. We're bringing it back to CTU with us for analysis. Also, there's a car here that was reported stolen from the Francisco Hotel a few blocks away about two hours ago. There are fingerprints all over it, so we are transferring them to acetate and bringing them back to CTU too."

"Okay, good work Curtis."

"We'll be back within a half hour." He put down the phone.

_4.53.16 a.m._

Audrey Raines had just set off for CTU. She had spent the last ten minutes checking what else had been stolen from her safe. It was just a bit of her money: as far as she could tell the only compromising thing that had been taken was the President's schedule. As much as she hated it, she had been given the number for a private security guard in case of any emergency. Audrey was the sort of person that tried not to rely on other people, but this situation called for unorthodox methods. As she set off down her drive, she found the number in her contacts list on her mobile and dialled the number. Before leaving she told Paul he had to stay, despite his insistent rebuttals, so someone would be there when the security arrived. She also wanted to make sure if anyone came back for something more, someone would be in the house. She didn't tell him that though. After a few rings, a groggy voice picked up the phone.

"Hello, I'm very sorry to call you at such at terrible hour, it's just, there's been a break in at my house and – this is Audrey Raines, by the way, sorry!" She was being clumsy: it was the fatigue.

"That's ok, what do you need?"

"Well I'd like for some men to go to keep an eye on my house – some people stole some very important documents from there less than an hour ago and I want to make sure they don't come back for anything else. How soon do you think you'd be able to get there Mr..?"

"Edmunds. You can call me Chase."

Michael Skinner finally broke away from the men at the conference table. He wondered to himself how these men managed to stay so alert: they must have been up all day and through the night as well. He had been careful and made sure to sleep through the day just passed so he would be prepared for the events about to occur. He finally reached the woman at the desk. She looked up from her nails, and asked the same thing she did to every person who went to the desk.

"Can I see your access card please?"

Michael flashed a card at her, displaying a picture of him, some basic information, and his job title. "Chief of Staff," he confirmed.

"Alright then, go on through," said the woman, completing the only other phrase she said to anyone all day.

As Michael passed through a metal detector, a light next to the door turned from red to green and he was admitted. It had taken him six years to establish this cover, get under the sheets with this man, but it had been worth it. Worth it for what he and his fundamentalist friends were going to accomplish today.

The room Michael found himself in was a lot smaller than the one he just came from. There was a table that could seat around ten people, and at the far end of the room was a screen with five or six smaller images of people, all facing a man at the head of the table. He turned to face Michael, and smiled as he saw him. Michael was expected.

"You're here! We thought you'd never arrive." He beamed at Michael.

"I'm here, there's no need to worry," Michael paused, "Mr. President."

John Keeler sat back in his chair, and turned around to face the screens again. Michael took his place on the right hand side of the President of the United States; the man he was going to set up for all the events that would take place today.

**_Episode 03: 5.00 a.m. – 6.00 a.m._**

_5.00.08 a.m._

"Well, now we are all here, we might as well get started." John Keeler led the meeting. He wasn't beaming anymore. "Now I'm sure you are all aware of the situation that CTU Los Angeles has discovered; there is a possible threat to national security." Michael smiled to himself. _That's right Mr. President_, he thought, _and everyone in the world is going to think you were behind_ _it_.

Maya had been walking around for about twenty minutes. She was completely lost, and had no idea where she was. A tear trickled down her cheer. She called out for her mother, but no one came. There wasn't a soul out at this time of night. It was a nice neighbourhood. She stumbled down the road, looking for a place of comfort. Bells were ringing inside her head, and it began to agitate her. She screamed: screamed as loud as she could.

George Kliavkoff woke up to the sound of screaming. He looked out his window and saw his neighbour's daughter, Maya Driscoll, rocking herself backwards and forwards in the middle of the road. He knew she had schizophrenia, but the girl was read trouble. She had yelled at his son, Evan, before, just because he went over to her fence and smiled at her. He pulled on a dressing gown and checked in on his son. Luckily, he was still asleep. Heading down the stairs, George pulled on a pair of slippers and grabbed the keys to the Driscoll's house. Erin had given him a set in case of an emergency, and that's what George was classing this as. He would have bet money that the girl wouldn't have taken keys out with her. He crossed the street over to where she was.

At the sight of the man, Maya leapt back. She didn't recognise him; all she could see was a tall, scary figure coming towards her, and she yelped. George tried to stay as calm as he could. He just wanted to get back to bed.

"Maya, it's me. George, from next door: remember me?"

She stared at him intently. It was hard to make out his face. "What're you gonna do to me? What do you WANT?" she began to shout again. George wondered where the hell Erin was.

"I just want to take you home: its dark and people are _trying to sleep_." Agitation was beginning to creep into his voice.

"NO! I know what you are going to do! You'll take me away and ABUSE ME!" The false accusations irritated George, Why was he bothering to try and help this girl who was clearly beyond help? He stood up from his crouching position next to her. He didn't predict her next move.

Maya stood up and punched George in the face. He toppled over to the floor and splashed in a puddle on the side of the road. A fraction of a second later Maya was gone, running down the street. He heard her splashing in water as she went down the side of the road. Blood poured into the puddle that George was still lying in, turning it a nasty colour of crimson.

He stood up and shook himself off. Looking in the distance, George could just about make out the silhouetted figure of the deranged girl. She disappeared from view and he contemplated how little he cared. Turning around, the soaking, blood stained man headed back for his house.

Chase pulled on his shoes as he prepared to leave the house. This wasn't an unusual occurrence for him; there had been several occasions before when he had to wake up early. However, he knew he should have stayed up so late watching that film. He thought about it as he tied he laces: he probably got less than an hour's sleep. As he pulled his laces tight, Kim came around. He had tried not to wake her. There was a note on the bedside he had left for her, saying he had to go out for a job. She hated it when he left at night.

"Chase... what's going on?"

"I'm sorry Kim, a woman called: her house has been broken into-"

"So what do you need to go for? Let the police deal with it?" She wasn't happy.

"She called and asked specially! Apparently she has some important documents that were stolen and she wants to make sure no one comes back to get some more. She works high up in the government."

Kim sighed and rolled over, ending the conversation. Chase did not like to leave her like this, but he didn't have a choice. He had to go now and meet the two other guys from his security company he had called up. He went over to her and stroked her shoulder. She didn't respond. He sighed, and went into the room next door. They lay his daughter, Angela that he and Kim were raising. He stroked her practically bald head, and she looked to smile. That made Chase feel a little better, and so he set off for the door. He picked up his jacket and keys, and headed out towards his car.

_5.18.12 a.m._

Paul was searching the house for anything the robber may have left behind. Audrey said she had called a man from a private security company, and he should be coming over within ten minutes. He went to the back door where the man had broken in, and couldn't see anything. As he was turning around to go back inside, Paul spotted something out of the corner of his eye. By a bush in the back garden was a leather wallet. Paul's heart skipped a beat: this was good news! He ran over to it, and looked inside. Even better; the man had a name now. This was a great find. He went inside and sat at the table under a light. He could see the I.D. better now: it showed a picture of a Caucasian male, with a date of birth, occupation and nationality. That wasn't what Paul was interested in. His eyes went directly to the section titled "Name", under which it said –

"Jason Powell." Paul hadn't heard of the name before, but he whispered it under his breath. He knew this would be a clue to whatever was happening today.

Jason Powell had returned to the house when he realised he left the wallet. He was angry at himself: this could compromise the whole mission. Ties could be made to other fundamentalists and everything could be ruined. That was why he had to get the wallet back: at any cost. All members of the group had sworn not to kill unless absolutely necessary. Powell felt like this was such a situation. He crept towards the house as Paul fished through the numbers on Audrey's list for the Los Angeles branch of the Counter Terrorist Unit.

There was no response from Daniels, one of the two members of Chase's security team he had called up for the job tonight, when Chase called his phone. That was unusual; part of the guidelines of a mission in Chase's security firm was to have your mobile on at all times. He racked his brains trying to figure out why he would have turned it off. The only things Chase could think of was if Daniels had reached the house and was engaged with a hostile, or, Chase grimaced, if a hostile had got to him. Just to make sure, Chase called the other member he had asked to assist him tonight. There was no answer. Chase began to get worried. He checked his watch: he should arrive at the house in about ten minutes. He put his foot down.

Skinner knew he had to place the tracker on the President before too long, then had to make a cover for him going to help his team members with tracking, and framing, the President. Keeler was talking to the Joint Chiefs about how the country should act in response to the threat from the "WildFires" group. The President was asking the Joint Chiefs if he should go public with the information he had received. He sweated; the pressure of the situation must have been getting to him. Keeler removed his jacket, giving Skinner the perfect opportunity to slip the small device, looking just like a pager, into the inner pocket on it. He knew that as of now he and his fellow _WildFires_ members would be able to see where Keeler was all the time.

"I think it's best to keep the information as low profile as possible," Henry Clark, the President's Press Secretary commented, "It would cause mass panic which isn't something we want to deal with on top of what we have learnt this morning."

"Alright Henry, I agree with you," the President nodded, "That's enough for now. We will have another meeting once I have been briefed on the latest updates in resolving this crisis from CTU."

The President stood up, and put his jacket back on as the screens around the table reverted to black. The President walked towards the door Skinner had come in just under half an hour before, and went back into the main room. Skinner followed closely behind. As the President walked into the main room, a silence fell over the crowd of people. Keeler re-informed them of the current situation. He asked for someone to call CTU so he could be given updates on their progress. Skinner knew once he had sat through that meeting he could slip away to check the tracker was working. Once that was done, his work here was over.

Paul dialled the number for CTU Los Angeles again. He kept getting a busy tone. Finally, he got through to one of the analysts. Just as he was about to explain that he was Paul Raines, husband of Audrey and he had found the name of the intruder, a shot was fired, shattering the beautifully designed back wall of the Raines' house. Paul dropped the phone and turned to face the front of the house where the shot came from. A man smashed down the front door holding a gun up to Paul's head. Paul recognised the man as Jason Powell: he must have come back for his wallet. He worked out that the I.D. he found probably gave away links to others who were involved in the plot, which could help CTU get closer to stopping the attack.

"Who did you tell my name to? WHO DID YOU TELL?" The man screamed at Paul.

"I... I... I didn't tell anyone... I was just ringing up now but before-"

"Who were you ringing?"

"C...CTU... Counter Terrorist Unit... Los Angeles." Paul's nerves showed when he stuttered.

"But before what?"

"What? Oh... before I could tell them anything you... you shot at me."

"So you mean they don't know who I am?"

"No, I didn't tell them, I didn't get a chance!"

"Good," Powell said. His green eyes burnt into Paul, and he raised the gun to his head. Paul squeezed his eyes shut, and heard a gunshot. He waited for a moment, but felt no wound. He opened one eye, and looked down at his body. No bullet wounds. He looked up a Powell, his green eyes had softened and melted to grey. As he collapsed on the floor Chase Edmunds came into Paul's view, stood with his gun pointed in the air that Powell had just vacated.

"Th... thanks...," Paul stuttered.

_5.32.23 a.m._

Jack felt the van pull to a halt. They had been driving for a long time, and Jack had no idea where they were. The back doors of the truck slide open, and all the men leapt out.

"What're we doing with him?" One asked.

"You wait there, make sure he stays unconscious," a more senior voice replied. The first man nodded as the other three men, as Jack could now tell, walked off towards a building. He couldn't tell what it was like, how tall it was, what sort of building it might have been. He was still tied up, plus it was quite dark. He felt at the rope and found a loose thread. He began work on unravelling it. The nervous guard in front of him glance back, and Jack lay still as log until he sensed the mad looked back around.

Paul was still shaking five minutes later. He had never been so close to death: he was a businessman, an honest businessman, and never dealt in such situations. Chase did the best job he could to calm him down. From his days in the field, he knew what the best methods to calm a person were: make sure they had lots of water, took deep breaths, and sat down. Chase made a checklist in his mind as he completed each step. After a few moments Paul began to speak.

"He...he robbed us a few hours ago... that man," he glanced at the body on the floor but couldn't look at it for a minute longer, "and he must have come back to... to collect this." Paul handed the I.D. over to Chase. He looked over the photo and compared it to the face of the man on the floor.

"Yeah, it's definitely him." Chase confirmed. "So are you going to tell me, what's this all about?" Paul explained what happened to Chase: everything from the high level security pages Powell stole to the gunshots through the window. "I think this Powell may have killed some of my men. I called them over here, and if they got here before me, he might have," he breathed heavily, "taken them out." Chase had trained these men up to be soldiers for him. They were skilled, they were able, and they were friends of his. Chase vowed to avenge their deaths.

Audrey was sat at a table opposite Chloe O'Brian. She was debriefing her, collecting all the information Audrey knew and adding it to their profile of the terrorist threat for today. They had searched police frequencies for the license plate Audrey had memorised, and it had been reported stolen two days ago. As Audrey came to the end of her conversation, the CTU in the roomed beeped.

"Miss O'Brian, I have a Chase Edmunds on the line for you."

"Chase? Okay, put him through."

"Chloe?"

"Chase! What's going on?"

Chase had moved away from Paul, and was standing in the kitchen. He had poured a glass of water. He had the I.D. badge of Powell in front of him. "I'm here with Paul Raines, his wife Audrey called me as a security guard after a break in."

"Yeah, I'm with his wife now." Audrey reacted: whoever this agent was talking to was in contact with Paul.

"Well anyway," Chase continued, "it seems the guy who broke in before had left something. He came back to pick up his wallet after he realised he left it. He must have realised it implicated him in whatever's going on right now," then he added, "which I would like to be filled in on, by the way."

"First, what did you get from the wallet?"

"The guy's name; or at least an alias. Jason Powell."

"Alright, I'll go run it now."

"Call me back on this number if you find anything."

"I'll get back to you." Chloe put the phone down and stood up simultaneously. "Thanks for your help, Miss Raines, but I have to go run a background check on someone."

"Can I make a call?"

"Sure, you can use this phone right here. Type a 1 before your number to make outgoing calls." She left the room and headed for her station. After quickly typing in the name, a list of results came up on her screen. According to CTU's database there was five men named Jason Powell. Chloe redialled the number for Chase's mobile. He picked up quickly.

"You got something?" He assumed it was Chloe.

"Yeah, but I'm going to need some more information on this guy. Does it say his age? Or does it have a picture?"

"Yeah, just wait." Chase moved the phone away from his ear and held it over the I.D. badge. He took a photo of it and forwarded it to CTU's server. "I've sent you an image; it should come up under my name."

"Do you have a security code?"

"Yeah it's 50977." Chloe opened the image. Straight away she could cut out two of the men: one was an African American so he didn't fit the ethnic description, and one was a seventeen year old kid. According to Powell's I.D., he was 38. That left three remaining possibilities. Upon closer inspection, Chloe saw that she could rule out one of them, the image of him showed him to be a very different looking man to the one on Powell's I.D.

"Okay Chase, I've narrowed it down to two men. I'll send field teams out to the last known address of each of them. There might be something we can find from there."

"Well where are they?" Chase was hoping to see this through.

"One's in a flat in downtown L.A. and one's just out of Valencia."

"Right well I'll go to the one in Valencia. C'mon Chloe, I already know the situation, and I'm really close." Reluctantly, Chloe agreed. After the call ended, she left her station to inform Driscoll.

Jack had managed to get one of his hands out of the rope. The man guarding him had stopped looking around: he appeared to be younger than the others and less experienced. That's why Jack regretted what he had to do next, after he had managed to slip his other hand out. He knelt up, and made sure he wasn't visible for the others to see. He sat behind the man, but one had on either side of his head, and twisted till his neck spun 90 degrees, severing his spinal cord. The men collapsed to a lump, but not before extinguishing a very audible yelp. Jack cursed, and leapt out the back of the van. He searched the man he had just killed, and found his gun. After checking it for ammunition, he ran around the corner of the building, just missing being seen from the other extremists. He knew they would be close, though.

One of them ran over to the body by the van.

"Ohh, no... little brother! What has he done to you?" Jacobi Nikks held his dead brother's head in his lap. A tear dripped down his face. His sadness was soon replaced by anger.

"Now we have to find this sonofabitch, he knows too much!" A vein on the man's head looked like it was ready to burst, "If he goes to the police, we're screwed!" As the other two men of his gang scattered, the older brother of the dead man lifted the body in the back of the truck. He banged his gun on the side of the van in anger and then slid the doors shut. He chased off after his comrades.

Chase was just about to leave when he spotted something suspicious coming out a car in front of his. He walked around the front of his vehicle and saw something dripped from the boot of a car in front. He fired up the engine of his car, and turned the headlights on. The liquid dripping from the car was blood. Chase whacked the boot of the car and the lid popped out. He raised it and lost his balance has he was the crumpled, dead bodies of Daniels and McCallister; the two men who were supposed to have come to help him tonight. He closed his eyes as a tear dripped from his face. He slammed the boot shut, but it wouldn't stay down. He bashed at it several times and realised he must have broken it when he smashed it in. Feeling defeated, he went back to his car and set off.

_5.45.54 a.m._

Skinner got of the conference room first. The update for the President from CTU had taken longer than he had hoped, and he still had to check the tracker worked before he left. He knew he would be harassed by some lower member of Keeler's Presidency, so he tried to get away before anyone could catch him. But before he could get away, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see President Keeler with a look of worry on his face.

"Michael, is everything alright?"

"Sir, everything's fine." He tried to act his normal self. But Keeler could see through it. He didn't pursue any further though.

"If you're sure. Just let me know if there's anything you want to talk about." Keeler patted him on the shoulder and turned to walk in the opposite direction where his troupe was leading him.

"Will do sir," Skinner said, as the President walked away, "thank you."

Maya Driscoll reached a playground in the middle of a park. She remembered coming here when she was smaller. She had hoped her mother would be here waiting for her, to push or on the swing or play with her on the slide. She was nowhere to be seen. Maya began to cry. She opened the colourful gate and went into the park. It wasn't as nice as she remembered it. There was litter everywhere, and some people had sprayed graffiti on the side of the slide. Maya couldn't make out what it said. She felt sad when she saw the worsened quality of the place. She sat next to the swing and shivered, rocking herself backwards and forwards, trying to calm her nerves. That's what Doctor Newman had told her to do; he had told her it would make her feel better. So she sat there, rocking, murmuring to herself, "Where are you... where are you mom?"

Driscoll was unhappy with the news Chloe had just brought to her: it was good that they had a possible residence for Powell, which would lead to more evidence, but she didn't like the idea on an _ex_-CTU agent, one she had never even met, heading up the team to one of the locations.

"Well," Driscoll said, through gritted teeth, "make sure the field team gets there as quick as possible."

"Yes Miss. Driscoll – well they have already been dispatched. They should get there in about fifteen minutes – and Chase should get there a few minutes before that."

"Alright, keep me updated." She turned and went in the opposite direction. Chloe rolled her eyes and went back to her station.

Audrey paced up and down in the room. Why wasn't she allowed to leave? That female agent had debriefed her, and she had told them everything she knew. She had called Paul, and he said everything was alright. The man had come back but the security guard she sent had killed him. He told her that they had got an I.D. on the guy, which was great news. She faced the wall. It was a five foot long mirror. She stood up close to it, and squinted. Was someone watching her through there?

Sarah Gavin was face to face with Audrey Raines, but she was confident the woman couldn't see her. She stood, arms folded, and tried to work out if there was anything she hadn't told CTU. Driscoll came into the observation room, and nodded at Sarah.

"Whenever you're ready." She told the analyst. Sarah walked up to the door that led into the interrogation room. She tapped a series of numbers into the keypad, and with a buzz was allowed entrance. Audrey stared at her.

"Miss Raines. Please sit down." Sarah instructed. Audrey sensed the tone and obeyed. "Miss Raines, in your debrief you said the key to the safe was on the table by your bed. How would the intruder have known that without prior knowledge?"

"I... I don't know. Maybe he saw it as he came in."

"The timeframe wasn't long enough: he must have known where to go to get the key, or else he wouldn't have been able to steal the information so fast. Who knows that you keep the key in your top drawer?"

"No one, I don't tell anyone that it's there."

"There must have been someone you told about it, or else how would the intruder have found it out so quickly?"

"I'm certain, I didn't tell anyone about the key!"

"Please, Miss Raines: think. What about your husband?"

"Well sure, Paul knows, but he would never do anything-" Before she could finish Sarah picked up the receiver of the phone on the table.

"Yeah, we need to send a team out to Audrey Raines' house: it's 2378 Mapplewell Drive." Audrey began to protest.

"No, Paul wouldn't tell anyone about-"

"You need to pick up her husband, Paul". Sarah put down the phone and left the room.

_5.58.16 a.m._

Jack looked around the side of the building. The men who were pursuing him had called for backup: he was now facing ten people on his own. Jack had managed to take out three of the men. Around the corner of the building he saw another four heading towards him. Luckily, he had the element of surprise. He jumped around the corner and took out two of the men instantly. The others ducked and he took his position around the building again. He checked the weapon and was disheartened to find that he had no bullets left. This was it: the men were closing in on him, and he was certain they would shoot him: he had killed their men. Jack turned and looked the other way.

A little down the alleyway where he was, Jack saw a dumpster. He ran to it, splashing in the puddles left from the shower earlier in the night. He crouched as two of the men came around the corner. He was peeking around the end of the skip, and could just see their silhouettes. One of them spotted him; Jack turned and began to run down the street. He ran as hard as he could, feet splashing in the water under him. And then heard shots. He stopped; that wasn't right – the shots sounded as if they were coming from a machine gun. Panting, he turned and saw his pursuers collapse into the pools of water. Their faces deep in the shallow water, Jack could see a CTU field team neutralising the people who had held Jack captive. He smiled and ran towards his saviours.

**_Episode 04: 6.00 a.m. – 7.00 a.m._**

_6.00.03 a.m._

Jack ran towards the field team and recognised one of the men calling to him: it was Curtis Manning, Chief of Staff of CTU LA and Assistant Director of Field Operations. The field agent checked in with the rest of his team, and confirmed that all hostiles were dead.

"How did you find me?" Jack asked.

"Edgar picked up the phone, and just head background chatter. He listened and heard some people talking about setting up the President. He ran a chase on it and discovered that it was your number. He tracked it for as long as he needed to get a location, then we were dispatched."

Jack was relieved: Curtis had saved his life. Now he needed to fill him in on what he had learnt from the gang. "C'mon, we need to get to CTU immediately." The agents ran and jumped into a car that began speeding down the street straight away. Near another CTU vehicle, the other field agents that had arrived with Curtis were taking photos of the dead hostiles and sending them back to CTU. They began to load the bodies in the back of the van. Watching from the side of a building, Jacobi Nikks saw the agents load his brother's body into their van. He had managed to escape before the agents had arrived, and he scurried off down an alley.

Audrey was desperately worried. A CTU agent had been set to pick up Paul. There was no way he would have told anyone about the key – why would he? She paced around the room. The hard stone walls felt like they were crumbling in on her; she just wanted to get out. She turned to face the mirror. She knew there would be someone on the other side watching her. She frowned at it.

She yelled, "Is this really what you want to do? Do you really want to interrogate _an innocent man_?" Audrey stared at the mirror, waiting for a reply. None came.

Skinner had managed to slip off to the men's room. He checked that no one was in any of the cubicles and then took out a device that looked much like a satellite navigation system. He turned it on, and found the flashing red dot he was looking for: the one that signalled where the President was. That proved to him that the tracking device was working. He smirked, and pulled out his mobile. After a few rings someone answered.

"Sleiman, the tracker is working."

"Good," his boss responded, "Now you need to bring the tracking device to me. Once we hook it up to the computers here it will be much easier for my people to follow the President's actions."

"As you wish, sir." Skinner ended the conversation. He thought in his mind of something he had to tell the President: a reason for his Chief of Staff leaving at the sound of this crisis. It had to be convincing. He thought up something quickly and put on a sombre face as he headed back into the conference room.

Chase was five minutes away from the house in Valencia. He fingered his gun and hoped that he would be able to use it against someone to avenge his dead co-workers. Fuming, he heard a ring from his pocket. He looked at the number; his phone had recognised it as Kim's mobile. Chase was about to answer when a car honked its horn at him: but it was too late, Chase had already collided with it.

Jack was briefing Curtis on what he knew so far. "They mentioned something about the President, which means he is in some sort of danger." Curtis nodded in agreement.

"We already thought there might be something against the President; a high level security file was stolen this morning from the home of Secretary Heller's daughter's house – Audrey Raines – she is also his senior policy analyst."

"What was the file about?"

Curtis paused dramatically. "It gave information about the President's schedule."

Jack cursed. "What are we doing to get it back?"

"We have teams going to two locations that could be the homes of the burglar – a private security guard at Raines' house killed the robber and found his I.D."

"Alright, good." Jack stopped and thought for a moment. "But what's the connection between these planned forest fires by the WildFires group and the President?"

That was the one part of the puzzle CTU had not been able to figure out. Jack scratched his head in wonderment, but the only thing he could think of was if the fundamentalists had some sort of personal vendetta against the President.

The CTU vehicle whizzed on further towards its destination.

"Yes, there's no need to worry. The man who was working with CTU has been taken out. He did not make it to the Valencia apartment; we have cleaned up Powell's mistakes." A man hobbled away from the scene of the crime. His leg was slightly bloody from the collision, but he had managed to escape without anyone noticing.

"Good," replied the voice on the other end of the phone, "now get back here and we can continue with the next phase of the plan." The man slid his phone shut, and continued on towards a car park where he had placed a back up vehicle for after his mission.

Paul Raines was still in shock; it had been quite an eventful two hours for him. After someone breaking into his house and stealing confidential documents, he had been saved moments from death by a man he had never met, who had now run off to find the residence of the man who broke in. And now, things were about to get a lot worse. He had had a shower since Chase Edmunds had left, and was now wearing some proper clothes. He sat in one of the soft chairs in the lounge area of the main room and began to sip a cup of coffee when a CTU team burst into his house, smashing the already broken front door into pieces. Paul yelped and fell backwards off his chair. Five armed field agents were pointing guns in his face. He looked up at them from his uncomfortable position on the floor, too scared to move.

"Paul Raines?" One of them asked. Paul looked at his badge. It read: Lee Castle, CTU Field Operations. Why were CTU launching an attack on him?

"Y...yes," he responded. He stutter was kicking in again, "W...what do you want?"

"You're coming with us." They grabbed him by his collar and threw him in the back of their van.

_6.16.41 a.m._

Skinner knocked on the door to the President's office. Keeler called him in, and Skinner sat down opposite the President. After a few seconds of silence, Keeler looked up from the speech he was reviewing. "Something wrong, Michael?"

"Actually sir, there is." He responded.

Keeler put down the sheet of paper he had in his hand. He crossed his fingers and devoted his full attention to his Chief of Staff. "What is it?"

"I just got a call; my brother has been in a traffic accident. He has been badly injured and had to be rushed into hospital."

"God Michael, I'm sorry!" Skinner waved off the words of sorrow. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Well I would be grateful if I were allowed to leave to go and see him in the hospital. I'll be back in few hours; I just want to check in on him." He looked the President directly in the eye as his began to water. The President considered for a moment, and replied:

"Of course. But I'll need you back in a few hours. Don't forget I'll be at the conference in two hours."

"Yes sir. If I take longer than planned, I'll go straight to the conference hall."

"Alright Michael, I'll see you in a few hours." The Chief of Staff nodded: his cover story was complete. He turned around and took a deep breath to emphasise his sadness. He exited the room. As soon as he was out a smile broke out on his face: he just directly lied to the President of the United States – right to his face! He went towards the exit, and after showing his I.D. was allowed to exit the large room. Skinner walked down the hall and headed for the stairway. He took out his phone and pressed redial.

"Sleiman, I'm out. I'll be there in forty-five minutes."

"Alright, we will be waiting for you." Without expressing any pleasantries the two men hung up, and Michael continued towards his car.

Audrey thought it was useless to just sit in the room. She decided to try calling her father again. She picked up the CTU phone in the holding room and, remembering to dial a 1 to make outgoing calls, she dialled the number for her father, memorised a long time ago. Again, she reached the secretary but this time she was told that her father was awake.

Her father yawned as he picked up the phone. Before he could say anything, she began. "Dad, I'm at the Counter Terrorist Unit, Los Angeles. They're keeping me here because-"

"The document was stolen, I know about it Audrey," the Secretary told her. He rubbed his eyes to shake the sleep out of himself, "It's OK, it wasn't you're fault."

She rolled her eyes. "I know that, but they think Paul was involved – they're bringing him in now!" With that, James Heller awoke instantly.

"Paul? They think he told these fundamentalists about the key to your safe?"

"Well, he is the only other person who knows about it..." Audrey felt the doubt about her husband begin to crawl into her voice, and remembered that she was trying to convince her father Paul _was_ innocent. "But why would he have given up something like that? He's not a traitor, you know that, dad."

James Heller agreed, he did know that. Paul was a very respectable man. An English businessman, he had moved to the States five years ago and set up his business here to try and earn greater revenue. And he has been successful. One of the things James Heller liked about Paul Raines was the fact that he had lots of money, and could look after his daughter. His company _Rivera Productions_, the film production company had been a huge success and earned millions. The two had begun dating three years ago, and had been married eighteen months ago. Heller was very happy, and so was his daughter. However, the marriage began to break down about six months ago, and Paul had moved out. Heller respected his daughter's decision, but felt that she was pushing this separation too fast. "I do know Paul is a good man. Look, I can get to CTU in about thirty-five minutes. Is that alright? When I get there, I will be able to sort everything out."

"OK, thanks dad." Audrey hung up, and checked her watch. _Thirty-five minutes_, she remembered, _that means he will be arriving at around 7.00 a.m._

Jack looked out the window of the large, black CTU vehicle. They were on 34th street – twenty minutes out from CTU. He knew that they would want to debrief him. And he knew that his former boss, and the woman who fired him, Erin Driscoll would be there. He desperately did not want to see her, but it did not look like he could avoid it now. Lights flashed past his eyes as the vehicle zoomed closer to the government location. Curtis had told Jack about the two possible locations for the now deceased Jason Powell, and how they might show some new leads. Apparently there was some security guard going to one of the locations because he was in the area and he had apprehended the suspect, Powell. A CTU field team had been dispatched to the other location. He sighed a deep breath, and decided to try and get ten minutes sleep before he arrived at CTU.

_6.27.31 a.m._

"Miss Driscoll, I think I found something." Edgar Stiles' eyes brightened up. His superior walked over to his system, and he continued. "I was scanning the hourlies from Division, and they mention a threat to the President from an unknown terrorist group somewhere in the Middle East. An undercover agent over there managed to send some files over to Division from a computer of one of his informants. He suspected they were planning something, but he didn't expect anything like this. They couldn't decrypt everything; some unknown filter has been used to stop our systems from being able to –"

Erin Driscoll held up a hand to silence him. "Edgar, I don't need all the ins and outs. Just tell me what you found."

Embarrassed, Edgar continued. He spoke quietly, and Driscoll had to lean in to hear him. She did not want to say anything again, she felt bad for telling him off the first time. He was nervous, but was very talented. "Well they think that these people are going to try and set up the President for something. We don't know what it is, yet."

"Alright then Edgar," Driscoll began a command, "Send this information to everyone's systems and make sure that they made it top priority." Sweat dripping from his brow, Edgar tapped some keys on his computer quickly and a notice popped up on everyone's screens.

"Everyone, listen up," Driscoll addressed the whole room, about to divulge the information that Edgar just discovered. He smiled to himself; for the first time he felt like he was actually helping out today.

Chase Edmunds came into consciousness.

"Mr. Edmunds," a man in a white coat addressed him, "don't move, you'll be okay." Chase turned his head, directly disobeying the paramedic's instructions. "Mr. Edmunds, please..."

He realised that he was in the back of an ambulance. Looking down at his arm, a tube was attached above his hand that connected to a plastic bag, full of sickeningly dark red blood.

"What happened?"

"You were in a car accident, there was a collision. A witness said you weren't concentrating on the road, and another car smashed right into you. You're very lucky to still be here. They called 911 straight away."

Suddenly, Chase remembered his mission. He had to let Chloe know that he had not made it to the house in Valencia. "Let me up! Let me up!! I'm working on a mission with the government; I need to contact the Counter Terrorist Unit!" Chase yelled, but the paramedic instructed two other men in the back of the van to strap Chase down. He fought against the ropes, but the paramedic injected something into his neck, and he couldn't fight the drowsiness.

Ronnie Lobell, CTU's Director of Field Operations, arrived at the house in downtown L.A. He had been sent out to find out whether this was the residence of Jason Powell, a man who had stolen classified documents. The house was just on one level, but it was large. The exquisite path that led to the front door curved and curled around the garden to make sure any visitors saw everything the man had to offer. There were ornaments, water displays, light shows, a very formidable display of wealth. There was a good chance this man was who he was looking for. He slowly made his way to the front door, treading lightly on the stone slabs that made the path. He looked in the window, and saw a very high tech looking room.

_This could be a place where this Powell was planning to set up the_ _President_, Ronnie thought to himself. He reached for the door, and confirmed it to be locked. He took out a very thin piece of wire, and entered it into the keyhole. After moving it around in a series of patterns he had memorised years ago at one of his training camps, he heard the click of the door as it unlocked. As he slowly pushed the door open, he surveyed the hall for any type of security system. The sun was rising over the back of the house, casting a shadow over his current location. A window from the opposite side of the house shed glowing orange light over the wooden floor of the hallway, and neatly lit up a security alarm positioned above a small table with keys on it. As he began to go over to it, he heard a beeping come from a room a distance away. Instantly, Ronnie thought he had somehow activated a bomb but he then heard the sound of an oven door open. He entered the house, creeping along the floor. This made sure that if he was shot at, the bullet would most likely go over him, as many people aimed for the head. Gun at the ready, he span into kitchen and pointed the gun at the first person he saw.

The man, holding a rash of bacon on a fork, passing it down to a teenage girl, froze. Ronnie had pointed the gun at him. As he looked around the room, he saw a family positioned around the table, waiting for their breakfast. The teenage girl sat with a school uniform on, as did a boy a few years younger than her. A woman in her thirties sat at the opposite end of the table with a hand to her mouth. At the sight of Ronnie, the man dropped the fork, letting the bacon hit the stone floor.

"Jason Powell?" Ronnie asked.

"Y...yeah..?" the man stuttered. Ronnie looked on inquisitively, but the man opened up a wallet, hand shaking, and revealed a driving license displaying his name proudly.

Ronnie muttered, "Dammit," and put his gun back in his holster. He threw his hair out of his face, and turned to leave the house, and leave the family to have no idea what just happened.

_6.46.58 a.m._

Chase's gurney was being pushed up to a surgery room. The doctor was looking at his handless arm interestedly. "What...er... happened with your hand?"

"What? Shut the hell up and give me a phone!" Chase yelled. As if he had time to tell his life story! As he yelled, he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"Mr. Edmunds, try to stay calm. We'll give you a phone after your operation..."

"Operation? What?" Chase had not been informed of what his condition was, or what needed to be done. He slammed back on the stretcher, and came to terms with his fate.

"So you're telling me that the Jason Powell we are looking for is going to be at the place where this _Chase Edmunds_," Driscoll said his name with a cold stare at Chloe, "is looking?"

"That's right," Ronnie told her, over the phone that was on speaker, so everyone in the briefing could hear.

"And Chloe," Driscoll turned to the analyst, "_You're_ telling me that this Edmunds hasn't called in, despite the fact that that he should have been there over half an hour ago?" Chloe could hear the anger creeping into her superior's voice.

"Yes Miss Driscoll." She looked down at her laptop screen rather than facing the ice cold glare of Erin Driscoll.

"Well why don't you try calling him?"

Chloe gave a brief nod, and, after collecting together her laptop and a few sheets of paper she had around her space on the desk, exited the room. As she got out, she pulled out her mobile phone and dialled Chase's phone.

Chase heard the ring, and knew it was his phone. He listened intently for where the ring was coming from, and decided that there must be some sort of shelf under where he was lying where his things were being kept. Still in motion on the moving gurney, Chase spun under and grabbed his phone before anyone noticed. He was laying back on the stretcher, and if Doctor Paulson had not been looking intently, he might not have noticed it. But before he could react, Chase had answered.

"Cha-"

"Chloe, there's been a problem, you need to send someone else to the Valencia residence. Do you copy? You need to se-". Before he could finish repeating his message, Doctor Paulson had grabbed the phone and ended the call.

"You should know, Mr. Edmunds, mobile phones are not allowed in hospitals." He glared at his patient, already knowing that he was unhappy with him. John, the paramedic who had met him initially had said the man had mentioned something about working with the government, but Paulson knew he had a job to do, and that was not to sort of government missions. It was to help his patient, however reluctant he was.

Chloe ran back into the conference room as soon as the call was over. She knew Driscoll was going to yell at her when she heard, but there wasn't time for things like this now. Who knows when this threat to the President was going to take place? "Miss Driscoll..." she began to explain the situation, nervously awaiting the eruption that was going to come.

Jack blinked awake as he felt the vehicle pull into CTU. He checked his watch; it was ten to seven. An agent was displaying a badge to a security guard, and the vehicle was let through. Behind them, the second vehicle was close, carrying the dead bodies of the men who tried to kill Jack. As they pulled into a parking space Curtis' phone rang.

"Erin, we just got back to CTU."

"Well hurry up here, we've got something." She turned to face Edgar and Chloe as she ended the calls. They directed her attention to one of the large LCD monitors hung on the wall. Images of the dead Jason Powell rolled across the screen simultaneously with images of him from CTU's archives.

Chloe began. "After Ronnie called in and told us about his lead being false, we sent out information to all divisions of CTU and other government agents to see if they had anything on the Jason Powell from the Valencia address." She turned to face Edgar, who delivered the next set of information.

"CTU Denver had a file on a man named Hamri Ali who, according to their file on him, had connections with Powell." On the screen, images of a new man appeared. He was Middle-Eastern, and stood with a cell phone to his ear in a crowded place. The photograph was clearly taken without the subject's knowledge for government purposes. He had a large nose and short, black hair. Edgar continued, "His last known address is in Los Angeles, close to the Valencia address. With the mention of that failed mission Erin Driscoll let out a deep sigh. She knew it was a mistake to let an ex-agent – one that she didn't even know - go out on a mission for her. She tried not to dwell on the mishap, another team had been dispatched to the location anyway. She focused on the matter at hand.

"So who do we have that can go out to that address?"

"I can do it," Jack had appeared behind Erin Driscoll, overhearing the Intel Chloe and Edgar provided for her.

"Jack, I heard that you had been involved in all this." Erin Driscoll did not feel like talking to Jack Bauer about what was going on.

"Well, I'd rather Curtis took out a team," she grimaced, "_he_ actually works here."

"I think Jack should come along, Erin." Curtis interjected, "He's aware of the situation, plus he is an experienced field agent."

She sighed, and couldn't be bothered to argue. "Fine, but Jack," she stared him straight in the eye, "Curtis is in command; you do _everything_ he says, got it?"

Maya Driscoll blinked as she became conscience. After realising that she must have drifted off to sleep, the girl stood up and looked around. There were people everywhere; what time was it? She has no idea, but she soon realised she was still dressed as if she were in bed. The sun was rising, and cast an orange glow over the playground where she still was. There was a young boy and girl on the swings, who stopped to look at her. They looked worried, so she smiled at them. They began to laugh, and she decided to leave. Turning on the children, she exited the playground and headed back home. People around her laughed as they saw her, and she began to feel bad. The feeling she had before she melted down. Not knowing it herself, she did not try to suppress the feeling, the feeling that caused her to lash out.

Michael Skinner checked his watch. _Should be there in under five minutes_, he thought. Just a few minutes of clicking buttons and he would have set up the President. It seemed too easy. He brushed aside his hesitations and put his foot down hard on the accelerator.

_6.58.42 a.m._

Chris Loman had waited patiently outside the large house whilst the CTU team escorted Paul Raines back to their headquarters. He watched them put the man in the back of their van and then bring out a dead body. He observed through his binoculars, and confirmed his suspicions that Jason Powell was dead. He breathed a sigh; the man had been a good comrade. Pulling out his phone, he dialled a number.

The man who had collided with Chase's car answered. "Malthus."

"It's Loman. Powell's dead."

"Yes, we had thought that might be the case."

"The authorities have taken his body away. That means they will be able to identify him, and if they find his apartment then they will learn everything." Loman was nervous.

"Don't worry. They had actually found his apartment about an hour ago, and an agent was headed there. I managed to slow them down," he looked down at his broken, twisted, bloody leg: a sacrifice. "Hamri has begun to clear out the apartment, so by the time another team is dispatched there everything should be gone."

"Alright then. Is there anything else you need me to do?

"Call Hamri, and tell him that Powell's death is confirmed. Then go dark; no one can know you have any connections to us."

**_Episode 05: 7.00 a.m. – 8.00 a.m._**

"Alright ladies, let's get up!" The prison guard rattled his truncheon on the cell bars of one of the inmates. As others awoke from their slumber, Tony Almeida rose with butterflies. He was leaving the prison in just three hours. He had not been able to sleep all night; the thought of being home in a nice, warm apartment was too much. He turned to face the guard who had reached his cell. The mechanical system that controlled the doors buzzed loudly and all the doors cranked open. Tony's severely bruised eye was exposed to the guard. He didn't say anything; C.O. Burns knew what the man was in prison for. He had been a traitor to his country, and it was a mockery to the U.S. system of correction that the man was being let out after just seven months. One phone call from ex-President Palmer and the Warden went all soft and allowed him mere months if he behaved well.

"C'mon Almeida, you've got three hours then we take you to a room where you can pack your things and await transportation." Burns tried to convey his anger in his voice. Tony noticed, but he didn't care. Burns had been giving him grief every since he arrived.

Tony knew the Correctional Officer was unhappy that he had been let out so early, and that he did not approve of the Warden's decision to let him out early. As he left his small, cold cell the officer gave him a push towards the stairs. It was breakfast time, and Tony knew something bad was going to be coming for him. Breakfast began at ten past seven, and finished at twenty to eight. That meant he had to survive another two and a half hours with all his other inmates, who were well aware of the reason he was in prison, before he could leave. The nasty bruise over his eye was a present from one of the other inmates who has heard about why he was in. Even worse, he had told practically every other inmate all the ins and outs of Tony's actions, which meant not only did he had no friends whilst he was in prison, but he has received several other "presents" from inmates who disapproved of his actions.

Michael Skinner pulled up the pebbled drive way of the _WildFires_ group. It was a discreet building; to some it might even have just looked like a large house or apartment building. As he entered, he walked down a long corridor with black, shiny walls and a floor to match. The area looked very modern. He turned down one of the many corridors; he knew exactly where he was going. Skinner arrived in front of a man sat behind a desk. He flashed his I.D., and the man realised who it was.

"Mr. Skinner," he began, "Mr. Sleiman has been waiting for you."

"Well, yes, I'm here now aren't I?" He looked down on the security guard. "Call Sleiman, tell him I'm on my way. I'll be there in a few moments."

"Yes sir," the security guard obeyed, picking up the phone straight away. He pressed a single button that transferred him to his boss' office, but before he could hear the call, Skinner was gone.

Maya breathed heavily, but she knew she could not control herself. A boy that was about 15 was pointing and laughing at her with his friends. _He's jealous, that's all_, the voice inside her head told her. _Show him what he's missing_.

She went over to him, and his expression suddenly changed. She saw the fear in his eyes.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong with you?" She got closer to him, and as she reached him she pulled back her fist and punched him square in the nose. Blood gushed like a lake from the centre of his face and as she went to punch again he ducked out of the way. That put her off balance, and she collapsed the floor. Her hand caught some gravel, and she threw it at the teen, who was now getting angry. As he was about to retaliate, some of his friends restrained Maya so she couldn't do anything else. Three of them held her back whilst another looked at their friend's nose.

"That bitch is crazy!" He yelled, as they started off towards a medical centre.

Jack had quickly got changed into some CTU field gear, and was ready to head out. He tried his best to stay away from Erin Driscoll, but she had insisted on making sure he was up to speed on all CTU protocol. As Jack turned to go, he saw a woman leaving one of the interrogations rooms.

"Thanks Marcy," she said, "They just wouldn't let me leave."

"That's alright Miss Raines, you know I work for _you_ as well as your father." The second woman, Marcy, was a large African American assistant. She carried a file with her, and walked with Miss Raines as they sat down at the conference table. Jack strived to hear what they were saying, but they were too far away to tell. Her slender figure had caught Jack's eye, and her intelligent, beautiful face beckoned him to keep looking.

"I was in a car ahead of your father," Marcy informed Audrey, "He should be arriving within five or so minutes. There was some bad traffic on the highway."

"That's alright, you've been a great help."

"Are we leaving straight away?" Marcy asked.

"No, let's wait for my father and see what he wants to do."

Jack watched as the women conversed. Curtis approached him, and asked if he was ready to go. "Just one second," Jack responded, "who is that woman in the conference room?" Jack subtly pointed towards where Miss Raines was, trying to make sure she didn't notice.

"That's Audrey Raines, the daughter of the Secretary of Defence," Curtis explained, noticing the interested look in Jack's eye, "it was her who the _WildFires_ stole Keeler's schedule from." But Jack had not heard anything past "Audrey Raines". He continued to watch her as she smiled at Marcy. Curtis snapped him out of his trance.

"C'mon Jack, we need to leave." Jack nodded in agreement, turning in the opposite direction towards the exit and car park. As he was half way down the corridor, he looked back one last time at the woman in the conference room, and he was sure she saw him too.

_7.17.14 a.m._

The President had asked to be briefed on what CTU had discovered so far, so Erin Driscoll had called a meeting with all the top analysts and people involved with the threat. Around the conference table sat Chloe O'Brian, Edgar Stiles, Ronnie Lobell who had just returned from the location in downtown L.A., and several other CTU analysts. Erin Driscoll picked up the phone, which instantly connected to CTU's operators working in a room several corridors away. She instructed them to connect with the President as everyone was reading in the conference room.

The operator clicked a few buttons, connected them with the secure line of the President of the United States. He informed Erin; "You are now on with the President."

A video feed straight from the conference hall where the President was flashed up onto the main screen in the conference room. He smiled at everyone in the room, and addressed their boss, "Miss Driscoll."

"Mr. President." She gave a small bow, hands tucked behind her back.

"So, what have you got for me?"

She felt odd telling the President that he was the subject of a terror attack, but was determined to continue with her job. "Well, as you know we received a threat against you, sir."

"Yes Erin, I am aware. How far are you in terms of locating where this threat came from?"

"Well we've dispatched a team to a location that we think might help us discover more about the group behind the threat, the _WildFires_."

As the briefing continued, Secretary of Defence James Heller was cleared through security. He made his way through the long corridor and found himself in the hub of CTU; the main office where daily operations took place. He surveyed the room, watching the talented young men and women hard at work to stop any threat that came their way. As he was looking, Heller noticed his daughter sat at a table with Marcy, his assistant. He approached the table slowly. Audrey noticed him, and they embraced.

"Dad, thank God you're here," Audrey said.

"It's no problem; I see Marcy managed to get you out alright," her father replied. Audrey explained what had happened to her as the briefing with the President continued.

Michael Skinner was sat behind a large screen, observing the flashing red dot signalling the location of the President. Since he had arrived, he connected the small device that he had brought to the computer. On it was a program that instantly loaded to the system, and showed the location of the President at all times. It had on it a map of the world, so wherever he went, Skinner would know: it even went down to detail what the street names the tracker was on. He tapped a few keys on the pad in front of him and the map zoomed in to a closer location, detailing the name of the street the President was on. It showed Michael that he was still at the Suite where the Chief of Staff had been around an hour before. He checked his watch, and noted that Keeler would be leaving to attend a conference in ten minutes.

In the room were several other programmers. They were all sat behind monitors, wearing black uniforms. Like robots, they all typed at their respective computers, not looking at one another or communicating. The room itself was large, and very dark. The only light was that being omitted from the computer screens, and a single light hanging from the ceiling. The cord it was attached to seemed to go on forever. Skinner wondered how far up the ceiling was; there was no way of telling. As he gazed up, a man burst into the room through the double doors that made up the entrance. Skinner jumped, taken aback by the loud noise that echoed around the room as if they were in a cave. The robots seemed not to notice.

"Skinner, you're here," the man said, his face covered in darkness. Skinner observed the man, his boss. He had a bald head which reflected the light, and dark piercing eyes.

"Yes sir." Skinner responded.

"You managed to place the tracker?"

"I did, sir," Skinner turned around and indicated to the large monitor. The man nodded in approval of Skinner's work. "He's just about to leave the Suite."

"Good work Skinner."

"Thank you, Mr. Sleiman."

Chris Loman had driven a short distance away from the house of Audrey and Paul Raines. He dumped his mobile phone and found a new vehicle, in the hopes that he would not be followed. He pulled up outside a post office, metal bars protecting anyone from breaking in whilst the shop was still closed. Just outside the entrance was a post box and a phone booth. He scuttled inside, and dialled Hamri Ali's number from the sheet of paper he wrote it on. After several rings, a man answered.

"Yes?"

"It's Loman. Malthus told me to inform you of Powell's death."

Hamri Ali was at Jason Powell's house in Valencia. Once Powell has stopped answering his phone, Ali became worried, and decided to remove all traces of his connection to the man. They had cleared out the back room, which contained maps and plans for the day's events, but they still had to make sure there were no phone numbers or addresses that Powell had that could lead the authorities to finding them.

"OK then. We thought that might be the case. We will be finished here soon enough."

"I'm going dark. I'll resume my duties when the heat dies down; I'll still be able to complete my part in the plan."

"I know you will. Because if you don't, you know we will have you killed.

Loman gulped, and ended the call.

Curtis speeded down the highway. Driver's created an orchestra of honking as he sped down the wrong lanes and even hit the sidewalk at one point, but he did not slow down. Jack held onto the dashboard for his life as he felt like his seatbelt was about to rip. The car flew over a speed bump, hanging in the air for what felt like an eternity. The two other backup vehicles struggled to keep up, but Curtis had managed to create a path through the cars which had swerved out of the way to avoid him. He briefly took his eyes away from the road to look at the sat nav. The small device showed him that the team were twenty minutes away from the address. Curtis gritted his teeth and pushed the pedal down as far as he dared, bypassing the suburban area's speed limit five times over.

_7.31.45 a.m._

Hamri Ali directed his men. They were carrying cardboard boxes full of compromising information that Powell had left strewn across his house. Most of the bottom floor had now been checked, but there were still two more levels to the house with information that needed to be purged. Ali knew that soon enough another field team would be dispatched to the house once they realised that their first agent never made it.

"Come on, hurry up." He addressed his men in English, as many of the men he hired were Americans who needed a job and kept their mouth shut about what they saw. They knew to do that, because they would be killed otherwise.

Chloe O'Brian was searching through records on Ali, trying to find any background information that would be useful for Jack and Curtis in finding the man. As she slid the wheel on her computer mouse through the masses of information that _might_ be related to the man, Chloe noticed something. It was highlighted, which meant her system had flagged it as possibly being related to her search parameters. She scanned the text, and printed it out show to Driscoll. _Maybe this will help me get back in her good books_, Chloe thought to herself. She approached Driscoll.

"Miss Driscoll, I found information about a company, Francisco Limited, that Hamri Ali has major stocks in." Chloe informed.

"Have you found a location address for the company?"

"Yeah, it's on 77th, an old warehouse that was recently converted."

"OK, good work Chloe." Driscoll turned to the conference table, where Ronnie Lobell was sat with some field agents. "Ronnie," she called, and beckoned him over.

As she began to explain the situation to the Head of Field Ops, Chloe walked away, and sat back down at her desk, happy that she had helped further the investigation.

Michael Skinner watched as the President pulled away from the Suite. He was sat behind two large LCD monitors. One showed a news report following Keeler all the way to the conference hall where the President would talk about reducing carbon emissions or whatever else it was that the press wanted to hear him say so he could stay in office. On the other was the program tracking Keeler, proving to Skinner that the device he slipped into the President's jacket was still where he left it. Skinner noted that the TV report was around ten seconds behind real-time, allowing the editors in an office somewhere time to make sure nothing went wrong that they wanted to cover up. Skinner was sure that what they had planned would happen so quickly, the editors wouldn't even have a chance to cover anything up. He smiled malevolently, interlocking his fingers and leaning back in the padded, pivoted chair that he sat in.

Ronnie Lobell was with a field team heading to the closest headquarters of Francisco Limited, the company that CTU thought had connections to Hamri Ali. It was only five minutes from CTU LA, which meant that they should arrive within a few moments. Sweat dripped down his head, sliding its way along the wrinkles on his head. The CTU field gear was very hot when worn all together, especially whilst the sun was blazing in the sky. He swept the back of his arm across his head, destroying the water that found a home there. The vehicle turned a corner and Ronnie saw the old warehouse that was converted to form "Francisco Limited". Well, that was if you could say it was converted. The building looked quite dilapidated. The old logo that displayed the name of the company was faded, its former orange glowing font was now reduced to ripped lettering that could hardly be read. The building was unnoticeable; _the perfect place for a terrorist to hide his operations_, Ronnie pondered. The vehicle pulled to a stop in the company's car park at the rear of the building, and Ronnie jumped out. He was closely followed by two other men, with the driver staying in the car. They went around to the front of the warehouse, and entered through the main door.

At the front desk was one man – there did not appear to be anyone else in sight. Ronnie looked at his nametag – James Simons.

"Can I help you sir?" Simons greeted Ronnie politely, clearly recognising that he was in charge.

"Yeah, I'm Ronnie Lobell with the Counter Terrorist Unit. We found strong ties with your company to a man named Hamri Ali," Ronnie paused to see a reaction from the man. None came. "Could I speak to someone in charge?"

"Well, Mr. Bellis is the manager of this store, but he is out of town right now," Simons explained.

"How convenient," Ronnie muttered under his breath.

"The deputy manager is here though," Simons said, "if you'd like to speak to him I could call him down."

"That would be great, thanks Mr. Simons." Ronnie tapped the desk as Simons left through a back door, making sure to close it behind him.

Hamri Ali was getting nervous; it was taken longer than he had hoped to get rid of all of Powell's connections. The stupid man had left stuff all over the house, making the sweep impossible.

"Ali, there's something you should see." One of his men addressed him. Ali followed the man up the stairs, to Powell's bedroom. As he entered the room, Ali noticed the re-enforced door, presumably installed by Powell in case of a raid on his house. In a drawer next to Powell's bed, there was a cassette tape. The man who brought Ali up slid it into a tape player, and pressed play. The sound of Ali speaking filled the room, but the man did not move his lips. After listening to the conversation for a few seconds, Ali reached for the player and stopped the recording.

"That bastard recorded a call I had with him," Ali steamed.

"He must have wanted to use it as leverage in case you were going to try to betray him." The man responded. Ali rolled his eyes – he figured _that_ out himself. The man realised he had said something wrong, and left the room. Ali did not like to be messed with. He squeezed the player until it shattered, cutting a hole in his hand. He looked down at the blood in his hand, and dropped the player.

"Reitcher!" He addressed the man who just left. The man stuck his head around the side of the door, as if he were afraid to go in. "Clear up this mess!"

Reitcher nodded, and as Ali exited the room he began to pick up the pieces of the shattered player. As he grabbed one of the pieces, he cut open his hand. Blood gushed as he stuck the wounded hand in his mouth. He picked up the remaining pieces with his other hand and left the room with a nasty red stain on the carpet.

Simons looked through the porthole window separating him from the CTU team uneasily. He opened his mobile phone, and dialled a number branded into his head a long time ago. Ali answered.

"I think CTU might be onto us. There's a team here, saying they know about your connections to Fransicso."

Ali cursed. That meant they had somehow identified him. That probably meant that they found links from Powell to him – they would probably send a team to Powell's house to search for something. That meant that the work he was doing here needed to be speeded up. "Stall them. Keep them thinking you are willing to help, but if they get too much, call me back." Before Simons could respond, Ali hung up the phone. He sighed, and went back out to greet Ronnie.

As Curtis continued to jet down the road, Jack was on the phone with Chloe O'Brian, who was filling him in on background information on Hamri Ali.

"OK Jack," she began, "Ali was born in Afghanistan and became radicalised in his early twenties. He has short brown hair and a large nose. He is heavily invested in a company called Francisco Limited which supplies fancy objects for interior designing, but we think it's a cover for his projects..." As Chloe continued to babble about the terrorist, Jack glanced out the window. Suddenly he noticed something, and gasped.

"Curtis, stop!"

The field agent slammed on the breaks, bringing the CTU vehicle to a haul. The back wheels lifted from the floor and smoke circled the van. Jack smelt burning rubber, but ignored the scent. He squinted at a vehicle across the road from their location. The type was slightly faded, but Jack made out the letting on the side of the van – _Francisco Limited_. Jack put the pieces together; he remembered that the location for Jason Powell was near this address, but he thought a team had been dispatched to that location. There appeared to be no sign of a CTU vehicle. Jack became suspicious; obviously it was not a coincidence that a vehicle from a company led by known terrorists was outside the house of a man who had strong connections to that terrorist. Jack instructed Curtis to pull around the corner; he continued to observe the building as men carried boxes out from the house to the van. Many of them were burly, simple looking folk. However, he noticed a few men of Middle Eastern origin. He looked down at his PDA, and flicked up the image of Hamri Ali. None of the men appeared to resemble him physically. Then Jack noticed him; directing the men was a Middle Eastern man, dark hair with a big nose. It was definitely Ali. He was showing the men where to put the boxes, and what else needed to be taken out. He was clutching a piece of cloth to his hand, stained red with blood. Jack was unsure of what Ali was doing, but was sure of what had to be done.

"Curtis," he said, indicating to the man by the Francisco Limited truck, "We got Ali."

_7.54.13 a.m._

Jack watched the men through binoculars as they continued to load the boxes into the truck. Ali had disappeared inside, but the CTU team had thought up a plan.

"We are a-go" Jack informed the rest of the team over their wireless mikes. He and the rest of the team got out of the vehicle and headed towards the house at different angles. Once they were in position, Jack gave the order, "Now." At the same time, four of the men were killed instantly. The other three that remained were gunned down quickly. Jack counted nine altogether, one of those being Ali. That meant that one of the underlings was inside the house with Ali. The team ran in towards the house and gathered by the Francisco Limited truck. As he ran past a bush, Jack saw the bodies of four armed guards – the men sent to this address by CTU. He held back his anger and gathered with the rest of the team.

"There's Ali and one more man inside there. We have to take Ali alive." The team nodded in unison. They turned to face the door, and awaited Jack's command.

"Why haven't they come in for more boxes? CTU will wonder what happened to their team and will send another any moment!" Ali questioned Reitcher.

"I don't know Hamri," Reitcher responded honestly. "I'll go check on them."

Reitcher headed towards the door. At the same moment, Ali's phone vibrated. He answered.

"Hamri, the CTU team are persisting – I don't know what to tell them anymore," Simons worriedly asked his superior. Ali took a sigh. Just as he was about to respond, he saw four bullets rip through Reitcher's body.

Ali looked on, stunned. He cursed in Arabic, and turned to flee. He dropped the mobile phone, Simons still yelling down the line. Ali leapt up the stairs and found his way to Powell's bedroom. He slid the locks across, safely keeping him inside the room. He searched the cupboard and found a gun. Ali headed back over towards the door and saw a small porthole window. There was just about enough space for a bullet to squeeze through.

Jack ran up the stairs, but was too late. He smashed down every door he went past: a bathroom, a games room and then a bedroom. Jack slammed into the door, but instead of the wood ripping in two, there was a loud clang and a sharp pain in Jack's shoulder. The door had been reinforced; _this must be where Ali was_. As he peered around the edge of the door, a bullet whipped out through a tiny hole in the steel door, splitting a hair hanging in front of Jack's head.

As the bullet collided with a framed photograph, smashing the glass and causing the whole thing to collapse to the ground, Jack bit his lip and rested his head against the wall, thinking about what he could possibly do next.

**_Episode 06: 8.00 a.m. – 9.00 a.m._**

_8.00.14 a.m._

"Come on Ali, you might as well come out," Jack tried to persuade the terrorist to leave his hiding place, "It's the best move for you. I can offer you an immunity agreement, signed by the President. Just tell us what the plan is and you can have immunity for any past crimes, as well as free transport to a country of your choosing." Jack was desperate. He hated handing out immunity agreements, but if it was the only want to get terrorists to cooperate, then it was the best way to go.

"There's nothing you can offer me," Ali responded, his voice slightly muffled through the reinforced door, "Everything I want is happening." Jack growled; he hated it when they said that.

The President glanced at his watch. It was just after eight; Michael should be here by now. He had a busy schedule ahead; first he had to have a meeting with several high levelled members of an environmental agency about policies for reducing America's greenhouse emissions, then he had a Q&A with select members of the public who would be brought into a room to talk to him personally. Then at around eleven he had to sign a treaty to help reduce the country's carbon footprint, and just after that he had a speech to deliver to millions of people around the world. It would be a hard morning without his Chief of Staff. He sighed and looked at his watch again. Five past eight.

"Excuse me... excuse me what's going on back there?" Ronnie Lobell was getting angry. It had now been over ten minutes and the man, Simons, had not come back. Ronnie knew something was wrong. After calling once more to make sure the man was nowhere within hearing distance, Ronnie signalled to the agents to enter the back room. They jumped over the desk, and pushed the door. It had been locked. Ronnie smiled, knowing he had found something. He bashed the door and it collapsed. He was in a very large storage room, with cardboard boxes scattered across the floor. There were small forklifts for the heavy boxes, and lots of high rising shelves to house the boxes. Ronnie crept down one of the isles, not knowing where the man had gone. He felt something under his foot, and as he retreated he saw an abandoned mobile phone on the floor. He looked at it, and realised the call was still running. Ronnie put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

Ali's phone was still left on the floor. Jack, Curtis and the two other agents were on the second floor still trying to coerce Ali out of the bedroom. Every time Jack went closer, Ali sensed the movement and fired a shot through the small hole. Jack had no idea how many bullets the man had, and was not willing to risk finding out.

"Ali, what is it that the President has done to make you want to murder him?" Jack was trying a new tactic – it didn't seem like Ali was going to come out voluntarily, so maybe if Jack lulled him into a false sense of security, Ali would give up some secrets of his plan.

"I'm sure you wouldn't understand. You're an American agent, a patriot. Anything I say will be lost on you."

Jack rolled his eyes. This guy was more stubborn that he hoped for. He tried again.

"There's no response," Ronnie informed the agents around him, "but if we send the phone back to CTU they might be able to get a trace on some of the numbers in the address book." The men continued to search the storage area, looking down every isle in the hopes of finding Simons and seeing what connection he had to Hamri Ali.

Michael Skinner checked his watch. According to the image on his screen, the President had arrived at the conference hall ten minutes ago. He was expecting Michael to be with him now, but there was no chance of that. During the next four hours, Keeler should remain at his current location, changing rooms every so often to attend different points of his schedule. He knew that the President would be delivering a speech at about 11.30 this morning; hopefully Michael would be there by then. The small red dot continued to flash incessantly, indicating that the President still hadn't discovered the device. He decided that it was time to leave; there was work to do back at the President's Suite. He stood up from the chair and left the monitor with the flashing dot still going. He looked around at the people in the room, who had not acknowledged his existence ever since he arrived. Deciding to not address them before leaving, he walked towards the door and pushed, flooding the room with blinding light from the sun. He exited, and headed towards his car.

_8.29.12 a.m._

James Simons was hid behind a crate in the storage room of Francisco Limited. He did not have time to get out before the CTU agents arrived, so had taken refuge a good distance away from the door. Hoping the men would give up before they reached him, or at least go another direction and give him a chance to escape, Simons had left his gun and phone near the entrance to the storage room in his rush. He knew that they men had found his phone, as they had tried to talk to Ali. Luckily whatever had distracted his boss before had kept him busy; it appeared that the agents did not get to talk to him. He knew the men had his gun; their leader, Lobell, had told them to check it for fingerprints. It would not be long before he was identified. Simons fumbled in his top pocket, and felt the small, deadly tablet; ready and waiting in case of emergency. Ensuring it was still in one piece, so was still able to be used, he got up, thrust his hands into the air and yelled his surrender at the CTU agents.

Kim awoke to the sound of Angela's tears. She rubbed her eyes and sleepily stumbled into the room of Chase's daughter. Looking into the crib at the podgy face of her unofficially adopted daughter, Kim smiled and thought about all the happy memories she would be able to have with the baby lying in front of her. Angela stopped crying at the sight of Kim and began to laugh. Kim picked her up and rocked her backwards and forwards, soothing the baby girl. She moved into the main room, looking for Chase. He was nowhere to be found. She looked around the rest of the sea-view apartment, located on the very West coast of Los Angeles. Running out to the street, she saw that his car was gone. "Dammit," Kim muttered under her breath.

She hated it when he got night calls. She had a vague memory of Chase leaving in the night, but she was not sure how much of it was a dream. She stumbled back inside, using a free hand to slide the door closed behind her. Her slender figure was hugged by a small T-shirt she used to sleep in, sporting the logo of some restaurant in a retro-style font. She placed Angela in the baby chair at the table and picked up the house phone, dialling Chase's number. She folded her free arm under her one in use and waiting as the ring continued. After waiting over a minute there was still no answer. That either meant Chase was on a job which required him to turn off his mobile, or there had been a problem. Kim's mind always drifted to the latter.

Curtis retreated back down the stairs, leaving Jack and the two other agents. As he reached the bottom floor he noticed the phone lying on the ground. He picked it up, realising that it belonged to the man, Ali. Smiling, he realised he had just found a bargaining chip.

"Ali!" Curtis yelled as he leapt up the stairs, two at a time. "I've got your phone. I expect there might be some things on here you don't want me to find!"

Hamri Ali cursed. After spending so much time clearing out the apartment, removing anything that could implicate him, he had left his phone on the floor. His phone which contained so many contacts that the Americans would be able to use, which may lead them to discovering the plan. For several moments he sat with his back to the door, pondering what his possible options were. He stood up and paced around the room, hoping that would help speed along his decision. It didn't.

Curtis tried to open the menu, but a four digit sequence was required to get into it. Before pressing any buttons, he called in to CTU.

"O'Brian."

"Chloe, it's Curtis. I've got a mobile phone that requires a password to get into it – it's a four digit sequence of numbers.

Chloe continued to type whilst talking on the phone, holding it to her ear with the strength in her shoulder. "OK, you need to take out the SIM card and tell me the phone's network." Curtis complied. "Now look on the back of the card, there should be a long number sequence."

Curtis found it, and read out the numbers to Chloe. She concluded that that was all she needed, and she would get back to Curtis once she hacked in.

_8.45.15 a.m._

James Simons felt his front teeth shatter as Lobell pounded another punch into his jaw. Ronnie had been informed about five minutes ago that Jack and Curtis had found Ali, but had been unsuccessful in getting to him as of yet. He concluded that he would have to find something out himself. "What is Ali planning?"

"You... have no idea..." He struggled to get the words out, and they were muffled from the swelling of his tongue. Ronnie punched him again.

Maya Driscoll stumbled down the street. She finally managed to find her home. Cars raced past, drivers thumping their horns as she floated across the road, not taking any notice of the world around her. The front door was still open, and as she got inside she noticed a big hole in the wall where the television had once been. She looked more around the house and noticed other things had been taken, and everything was left in a mess. Maya could not work out what had happened. She went back to the hall and closed the front door. She had no idea what to do. Her mother had left her, that was all she could think about.

"I got into this mobile, Curtis," Chloe informed the agent as soon as he picked up his phone.

"Good," Curtis replied, "can you go through the contacts, see if you can find anyone who we can get in touch with?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. How incompetent do these agents think she is? "Already started that," she said, with an air of restlessness about her voice, "none of come up yet."

"Keep me informed."

Curtis tried again to get onto the phone's menu, and was not able to get through with no code. He found the _Recently Called_ section. The names listed were non-descript, designed to keep anyone from finding out the identities of the callers. Curtis found a call from a contact "L", received just over two hours ago. As he was looking through the contacts the phone beeped and a note covered the screen informing him of an incoming message. Curtis read it – "_Can't contact L. Plan continue for 11?_" He read it again to confirm the time. He turned to Jack and showed him the message.

Jack pondered how to continue. If they asked Ali what was the plan that was to commence at 11.00, he would know that they knew nothing and continue to refuse to cooperate. But if Jack convinced Ali that they _did_ know the plan, maybe they could bargain with him to stop it.

Chase awoke immediately. He sat upright in his bed and breathed heavily. He felt slightly dizzy, probably from sitting up too quickly. He looked around the room and remembered where he was. Hospital beds with men with broken legs and twisted spines surrounded him. He realised that the damage he suffered in the crash was quite substantial. To his left was a small table. On it sat a glass of water in a pristine glass. It was on an immaculate, glass table. On the second level of the table he saw what must have been the contents of his pocket before the crash. There was his wallet, his badge displaying information about his security firm, and his phone. He reached for it, and felt a splitting pain down his side. He looked and saw blood covering his hospital gown. Alarms blazed in his head as machined beeped all around him, and before he could get to the phone a doctor and a nurse rushed in, forcefully pushed him back down on his bed and began to do some work on him. He was unsure of what it was, because before he could say a word a tube was pushed over his mouth and he was unable to fight his eyelids from closing.

_8.59.23 a.m._

"ALI!" Jack yelled this time. "We know about the plan. We know what's going down at 11 today. So now, you have one of two choices. You can either stay hiding out in that room, we will know of your implication, you will be charged with high treason and spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. Or, you can come out, tell us about the other people involved in this plan and maybe, _just_ maybe, I'll be able to get you a reduced sentence. It's your choice. You've got four minutes."


	2. Part 2: Chapters 7 to 12

Previously on 24...

_**Jack Bauer**__ tracks down Hamri Ali, a terrorist planning to assassinate the President._

___**Tony Almeida**__ is incarcerated in prison for treason due to the events of Day 3._

_**Chris Loman**__ steals documents from Audrey Raines' house with information about President Keeler's events, then begins to implement Ali's terrorist attack._

_**Michael Skinner**__ of the WildFires radical group is setting up the President. After placing a tracker on him, he begins the next phase of his plan._

**Episode 07: 9.00 a.m. – 10.00 a.m.**

_9.00.02 a.m._

Tony looked at the clock. Just one hour to go. From there he wandered outside into the yard. He looked around. In prison it was quite clear that there were several distinct groups. The Blacks were in one corner, playing basketball. The Latinos were by the benches, looking as if they were scheming something. The skinheads stood by the fencing, as if they thought if they pushed hard enough it would all over and they could escape. Tony squinted in the sun, wondering what to do. He saw an empty space over by a wall and went to sit down. He pushed the pebbles into small piles around him. Suddenly, the basketball rolled over near him. One of the black players headed over towards him, and Tony picked the ball up and threw it to him.

As he picked it up, he saw a look of anger cross the man's face. Tony looked worried, and the other basket ballers came closer to him. He stood up and backed away, but ran out of wall and stumbled. They homed in on him. The first approached him. He was call Gums.

"What you think you're doing, touchin' our ball?" He questioned. His face was inches away from Tony's face; he could feel the man's breath crashing onto his face. His blinked it out of his eyes.

"I, er, was just tryin' to pass it over to you..." He trailed off.

"We don't want no traitor touchin' our ball, do we boys?" The rest of the crowd yelled in response, gaining the attention of the other groups. Tony did not like where this way going. "You should stay away from us, traitor. Just 'cause you got the President on your side on the outside doesn't mean he can help you in here." He began to chuckle, and pushed Tony. A guard noticed.

"Hey you two, break it up over there."

Gums looked up. His bulging arms realigned into a position of innocence. "We just playin' around, ain't we Almeida?" Tony gave a brief, unconvincing nod. "I _said_ we just playin', Almeida!" Tony looked around, knowing what was coming. Before he could think Gums' fist collided with his face.

_9.03.44 a.m._

"OK Ali your time is UP!" Jack yelled through the door. He stood to one side in case Ali tried any other tricks, but Jack thought he had run out of bullets now. He had his gun at the ready. "Come out now and we can cut you a deal!"

Inside, Ali stammered. Perspiration soaked his face. How could they know? Had any incriminating evidence been left? He breathed heavily. "If you know what's going down, then you know it's too late to stop it!"

Jack faltered. He didn't know what was going down, but he had to keep up the facade. "Of course we can, there's time if you come out RIGHT NOW!"

Jack paced back and forth in front of the door. The President must have done something bad to Ali to make him hate him this much. Jack turned to look at Curtis, and gave him a subtle nod. Curtis understood the action to mean that Plan B should be put into effect, and went down the stairs. Jack was left with one of the CTU TAC team members. He looked worried, and Jack looked to his hand, and saw him to be shaking. Jack gave him a half-smile, then looked to the ground.

Chris Loman was still hiding out. He had adopted a fake name, Ian Harkiss, and was walking across a road in downtown Los Angeles. It was around ten past nine, and people were heading to work. In Los Angeles the streets are blocked up from 6:00am until around 11:00am, and it was not different this time. Loman waited patiently, and when the traffic pulled to a halt once more he cut through the cars. He paced along the sidewalk on the other side of the road. The ground was uneven and he almost faltered. Loman was scared. The plan had not gone as Ali had said. Anyway, he continued to walk. He turned down a side street to an area that looked less friendly. Where there were trees shooting from spaces in the sidewalk before, now there were drugged-up dirt bags. The buildings looked grotty and the street was cobbled, as if no-one had ever been bothered to tarmac it. Perfect. Loman smiled.

He walked further down the street and it seemed to get darker. Finally he reached a building near the end of the street. He looked past the end of the cul-de-sac, through the metal fencing that separated the road from a field on the other side. The grass was overgrown, and it did not appear to be used for anything. Loman turned to the building and knocked on the door. Whilst waiting, he looked at the signs on the window; the building must have originally been used as a hairdressers. An old, tattered sign that just about said "_Mal's Hair Dressers_" was visible, but the writing was worn and faded. A small section of the door slid open and Loman saw a pair of eyes looking out at him. They were almost fully black, and the left eye looked to have a scar through it. Loman considered what sort of event could have created such misfortune. The eyelids were old, the skin darkened. The right eye was half covered by the eyelid, the left eye fully visible, created a look of surprise and mistrust. After surveying Loman for several seconds, the slider was pushed shut with forceful persuasion and the door was slung open.

The man on the other side fitted the image Loman formed in his mind from looking at his eyes. He was not short, but was not standing to his full height, as if he had been sat down for all of his life. He had grey, messy hair that looked like bits of wire had just thrown on to his head. His mouth was curled and his nose was long and precarious, and as suggested by the eyelids the man's skin was saggy and looked unhealthy. After staring for several seconds, Loman said "It's Harkiss, I called earlier-"

The man cut him off. "I know what yer hear for," he said, "The name's Bloom. Come in." Bloom threw his arm behind himself and moved to the side, allowing Loman in. He stepped over the threshold and walked into the room. Bloom looks suspiciously out of the door, as if looking to see if anyone had seen Loman come in, then slammed the door shut.

"DAMMIT Ali we don't have time for this, you said it yourself!" Jack pounded the door, ignoring the throbbing pain it caused to his hand. However, he was certain that Ali would not come around. He felt useless; here was a suspect, the only man he needed to stop the assassination attempt on the President, and he was stopped by a metal door.

Correctional Officer Burns grabbed his shotgun. Behind him, many other guards followed in the line and grabbed their own. Each was kitted out with riot gear, ready to try to calm the storm that had erupted outside. The whole prison had become involved in the brawl, all because of the bastard Almeida. He ran out into the yard along with over twenty other armed guards. Burns shot into the air, trying to call attention to the prisoners, but it seemed useless. Burns pointed pairs of guards to different areas of the yard to try to calm things down, and they each set off. Some merely yelled, others threatened with guns. Burns headed up to a particularly violent looking part of the fight and tried to pull several inmates away from each other.

Tony watched what was happening from under a table. He had crawled under as quickly as he could after the fight began. So far he had been lucky, no-one had noticed him, but he did not expect it to last for long. And he daren't even consider what it might do to his sentence when it was learnt that he had been involved in the birth of the fight. He saw C.O. Burns trying to pull Gums away from another tough looking inmate. He also saw another inmate come up behind Burns with a shotgun. How had he got a shotgun? Worried, Tony glanced over to a corner and saw a guard unconscious on the floor. He yelled out Burns' name but it was too late, the inmate pulled the trigger and bits of Burns' chest covered Gums and the inmate he was fighting. Tony turned away in disgust. He heard another shot, and turned around. Were the inmates just trying to kill all the guards? However, he was shocked to see it was one of the guards – he shot Burns' killer after he saw the C.O.'s dead body. Tony's jaw dropped; surely they couldn't do something like that? He heard more shots, and saw more of the guards were following suite and also shooting the inmates. Tony, worried for his safety, headed out from under the table and found a spot further from any of the fighting.

"Hey, look't Almeida, whattya doin' over there all on ya own?" Gums yelled after noticing Tony. He stood up to his full height, but Tony stayed bunched in the corner. He knew that he could protect his vital organs better if he stayed in a ball, and that would be exactly the sort of thing he would need to do if Gums came over. And he did.

Gums began to run towards Tony, who covered his head with his hands. He raised a fist to punch Tony but never brought it down again. Tony dared to peek out from under his arm, and saw the dead body of Gums fall to one side. As he did, one of guards came into Tony's view, his shotgun still smoking from the shot he just fired into Gum's chest. Tony nodded at him, an understated gesture for saving his life. The guard nodded back, then broke out of his trance and ran back to the fighting. Heart beating, Tony stayed in his corner and looked at Gum's face, immortalised with anger.

_9:17:23 a.m._

Curtis was surprised at how nicely kept the garden was. Around the back of the house was a large garden, divided into half grass, half concrete. On the concrete half, closest to the house, was a small pond with a running stream along the edge of the concrete, next to a small line of flowers. Red and yellow blossomed from the ground, and it looked wonderfully pure next to the water. There was a table with several chairs around it, situated next to a barbeque, the grill worn from use. The table was just in front of a pair of French doors that opened from the living room of the house into the garden.

In the grassed end, more flowers lined the edges and created a beautiful skirting board to the fences that surrounded the garden. Near the bottom was a large tree with branches low enough to climb upon it. From his swinging position several feet above the ground, Curtis had a good view of the garden. The rope he was climbing, which he had attached to the top of the house several moments before, was sturdy, and before climbing he had tugged on it to make sure it would not fall out. But, as he predicted, it was wedged into the draining pipe and would not come out unless a very large amount of weight was put upon it. Luckily, Curtis did not weigh enough for this to be an issue, and so he climbed. He stopped momentarily, waiting for the two other TAC team members to do the same as him. They had both swung their ropes up, and were pulling on it. They decided that the ropes were tight enough, and began to climb. Once they caught up to Curtis – one on either side of him – he nodded to them, confirming that they were ready to put Plan B into action. Curtis look one last look at the garden, surprised that a terrorist such as Jason Powell could have such a nice place, and quickly climbed the rope.

All three men reached the window at the same time. They climbed above the window, quickly enough so that they were undetected by Hamri Ali in the room they had just passed. Once above the window, they swung down to it and instantly smashed the glass, grabbing Ali's attention. The two CTU agents pointed their guns at Ali, whilst Curtis just ran towards him knocked him to the floor. As he fell the guns of the agents followed him, ready to shoot if he tried anything. Curtis grabbed the gun from Ali's hand and opened it up, confirming his suspicion that Ali had kept one bullet in there in case all else failed and he had to escape from CTU the only way possible. Luckily, Curtis had got to him before he could do anything of the sort and he handcuffed him up.

Jack heard the glass smash, then the thud of someone collapsing to the ground. He had his ear pressed against the door, and heard the tingling of Curtis' handcuffs, and he assumed that they had managed to get Ali alive. To confirm, Jack called – "Curtis?"

"We got him, Jack," Curtis said, a grin erupting over his face, "We got him."

"This the sort of thing you're lookin' for?" Bloom said to Loman. They were sat at a table in the first room in _Mal's Hair Dressers_, though Loman could barely tell where they were. Either Bloom was a vampire, or he just really did not like the light, because the room was near pitch-black. The only light came from a dim bulb that hung above their heads; it looked as if it may have been the same one there since Mal had inhabited the building.

Bloom whipped out a wallet, and searched through cards that he had stored in there. Eventually he came upon the one that he wanted, and pulled it out. He faced it towards Loman, holding it with thumb on top and first and second finger on bottom, making it clear that he did not want Loman to touch it. Loman squinted in the light, trying to confirm that it was, in fact, what he wanted. The card, made out for "_John Smith_" as an example, showed a black haired, 30-something year old man who supposedly worked for the President of the United States' Secret Service. Everything told Loman that it was perfect, exactly like all the information he had learnt told him it should look. There was a date of birth, location of origin, badge number, all the details that a Secret Service member should have. It was the perfect way of getting close to the President.

"Yes," Loman responded, "that's it... that's perfect." He smiled.

"So, you want eight of these?" Bloom asked.

"Eight, that's right."

"Give me the names, and come back in forty minutes."

Loman nodded, and received the scrap of paper Bloom pushed towards him. The scrunched up lined sheet was combined with a pencil, and Loman scribbled eight names, all fakes that had been planned months before, down. Bloom took the sheet back and Loman headed back out the door. _Ali will be pleased_, he thought to himself.

_9:44:33 a.m._

Jack and Curtis had taken Hamri Ali downstairs and sat him down on a chair. The handcuffs were removed from one of his hands, and it was instead attached to the chair. His feet had also now been chained together. Jack pulled up a chair, and spun it around so the back faced Ali. He stretched his legs over either side of it and sat down, facing Ali. "Tell me the plan."

The phone buzzed, and Kim ran to pick it up.

"Kimberly Bauer?" The monotonous female voice on the other end inquired.

"Y... yes?" She stammered. Kim feared for the worst.

"Chase Edmunds has listed you as his next-of-kin and-"

The woman was interrupted, "What's happened?"

"Mr. Edmunds has been in a car accident; he is alright now, and has been out of surgery. If you would like to come down and see him-"

Once again, Kim interrupted the woman, and learnt the name of the hospital Chase was at, St. Thomas. She hung up without another word, grabbed Angela and headed out the door.

"We planned to assassinate the President whilst he was making his speech about rainforests, at 12pm today," Ali began. "I have someone making some fake identification making eight of my men out to be Secret Service agents, then we will get close enough to him to shoot him..." he trailed off.

"Good," Jack said, and took his foot off the hole in Ali's foot that he had just shot. Ali screeched in pain. "Now let's get you to a hospital." Happy that his quick persuasion methods had worked, Jack and Curtis took Ali to the car and drove away.

**Episode 08: 10.00 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.**

_10:00:30 a.m._

"It's Jack," he said as he called CTU. "We've got to Ali –"

"Well _finally_, Jack. If we'd've had Ronnie out there..." Erin Driscoll lamented.

"Dammit Erin just listen," Jack said, angered. Here he was trying to tell her how to stop an assassination on the President, and all she does is complain about how long it's taken him. "It's going down at 12pm, when the President is making his speeches about rainforests. Ali says that they've got some man who is getting fake Secret Service IDs to get them close to the President."

"OK, Jack. I'll get a team set up."

Confused, Jack spoke before Driscoll could put the phone down. "A team? Erin, we're close enough, just get a few more guys to meet us there."

"Jack, you need to bring Ali back for questioning."

"We've got two vehicles here – Curtis and I can set off for the assassination attempt, Burton and his team can bring Ali back to CTU!"

Driscoll did not feel like arguing with Jack. And, she knew he was good at these sorts of things. "Alright Jack, I'll have Baker come and meet you with a team."

Jack hung up and slid the phone into his pocket. He turned to Curtis, who was holding Ali. "Put Ali with Burton and the team, me and you are setting off for the conference hall where Keeler is doing his speech." Curtis hopped into the car with Jack, who drove, and after Burton, Ali and the team set off, Jack and Curtis pulled away.

"...And I feel that with these new reforms we can make sure that America will _not_ be the world's drain on oil, and we will be able to use new technology to make the world a better, safer, and greener place."

President John Keeler wrapped up his speech to a round of applause. He threw his arm in the air and waved to the press after the finished his half hour-long speech. As the applause subsided questions from members of the press fired at the President. Representatives from FOX, CNB, CTT, KRLH, everyone wanted the President to answer a question regarding his new policies to reduce the United States' carbon emissions. What they didn't know was that Keeler was merely saying what the press and the public wanted to hear; _this is how to get another term in the office_, he thought to himself. It was unlikely that he would actually do everything he said, but as long as he did some publicity stunts publically showing himself caring about greenhouse gases and the environment, it should be enough to sway the floating voters. Mark Kanar, Keeler's former Campaign Manager and current Press Secretary since rising to Presidency, entered the conference hall from a side door and called out to the yelling crowd – "President Keeler will not be answering any questions at this time. At 11'o'clock he will answer some short questions regarding his new policies before going on to make his speech. Thank you."

Despite the message the vultures continued to squawk, but by that point Keeler had made his way out of the side door that Kanar had just come into the room through, and was now exiting out of. Keeler collapsed into a chair. At first looking dumbstruck, he tilted his head up to Kanar and smiled. "So, Mark," he began, "What's the public's opinion on the policies?"

"Well sir, we'll need a little more time before we can calculate what the general population think, but so far we've had very positive reports. People love fighting global warming, and this is the most innovative method of reducing it that's been done... well, anywhere!"

Keeler's smile grew to a grin, happy that Kanar supported his policies. "Good," he responded, "Now let's start thinking about what sort of questions they'll be asking at 11."

Chase had taken their only car, so Kim had to get a bus. A taxi would be better, but it would be more expensive and she didn't have the time to wait around for it to come. So, Kim ran down their drive, Angela in arms, and found a bus stop just down the road. After waiting ten minutes, a bus came and she chose a stop that was a few minutes' walk from Chase's hospital. Presently, Kim was sat on the bus, a seat on the left side, bunched up near the window with Angela on her lap. _You're not going to die on us, Chase_, she thought, _Remember what I said... I won't raise this girl for you_. Angela looked up at her and smiled, unaware of what was going on. Kim smiled back at her, but it was a fake smile to please the baby. She tapped her feet impatiently, itching to get off the bus and back to Chase. An angry looking old woman in the seat in front and Kim stopped and avoided her eye.

Erin Driscoll got off the phone from speaking to Tom Baker and his team, directing them to a meeting place with Jack. She then called Jack and told him about the meeting place, explaining that he should convene with Baker there, create a plan, and then head out the conference hall. As she ended the call she looked at the time on her phone. 10:20am! She couldn't believe how fast the last few hours had gone. She typed in her home number, wanting to make sure that Maya went to school. After waiting for a few rings and receiving no answer, Erin began to worry. Suddenly Andrew Putney, one of the analysts approached her with a document that needed her signature. Then another person brought some new intel to her, and she received an important call in her office from a high ranking government agent, and before long she had forgotten all about Maya.

_10:25:19 a.m._

Loman stumbled back down the cobbled street to _Mal's Hair Dressers,_ this time equipped with a briefcase, and once again tapped on the door. As before, the hole in the door slid open and Loman gazed into the damaged eyes. This time, Bloom's response was much quicker and after only glancing at Loman he swung open the door and pulled Loman in. Not forgetting to check for any onlookers, Bloom eyed up and down the street and, after seeing no-one, slammed the door shut.

Loman walked up to the table once more. This time, there was a large machine that had been dumped on it. It looked like a complex printer that had screens and buttons on the side. Next to it was a small black case. Without saying a word, Bloom picked the case up and opened it. Inside, it was more like a book, but had plastic sheets that small pieces of paper could slide into. In this case, however, the fake Secret Service IDs had been slipped in; all eight of them with the fake names emblazoned across, including, at the front of the pack, Loman's one, announcing him as Ian Harkiss and displaying a recent image.

"Nice, very nice." Loman said. Bloom still did not say anything. After flicking through each of the badges, confirming there was eight, they all were authentically fake and that every detail was precisely correct so that anyone who did not look too hard at the badges could be thoroughly convinced, Loman nodded, confirming that they men had a deal.

Bloom stuck out his stumpy arm, palm facing upwards awaiting its reward. Loman placed the briefcase on the table and whilst he fiddled with the lock, studied Bloom's arm. Still hanging in the air as if an invisible string coming from the ceiling was tied to the end of his finger, the arm was yellowed from no exposure to light. The skin, again, was wrinkled and looked older than his eyes suggested. Loman managed to get into the briefcase and picked out five piles of money, each containing $2,000 in crisp, unmarked bills. Loman knew it was a hell of a lot of money, but it was a price worth paying to rid the world of one of the greatest liars to ever occupy the Oval Office.

After flipping through the pile to confirm the legitimacy of the money, Bloom nodded back to Loman and the transaction was complete. Bloom extended his arm in the direction of the door, still not uttering a word. _Clever_, Loman thought, _good tactic if you think someone is taping the conversation to try to blackmail you_. However, Loman and his crew had no interest in blackmailing a small-time criminal; it was more important to deal with the big-time ones.

Loman headed towards the door and, after taking one last look at the room, went out. He took the badges out from his pocket and looked at them in the proper light now that he was outside. He considered how incredible it was that Bloom could make such a wonderful forgery of such an important thing. He took a small tube-like device out from another pocket, and flipped open a lid, revealing a bright red button. After walking a short distance away from _Mal's Hair Dressers_, he pressed the button.

Inside, Bloom heard a buzz erupt from the middle of the pile of money. He quickly searched through them, allowing bills to fall to the floor as the pitch of the buzzing grew higher and higher. As he thought the buzzing could go no higher he found a small device with a flashing red screen. Realising what it was, he swung his arm back to throw it out the window, but it was too late and the explosion killed Bloom before he move a muscle.

By the time the explosion went off Loman was around the corner. The timer was set for ten seconds, which he found to be long enough to dissuade any attention from him being involved. No-one paid attention to the small, grotty side street. But when the explosion went off everyone stopped. People ran towards the cobbled street to see what was going on, including Loman, who feigned interest to keep up the facade. The whole of the bottom floor exploded, causing the second story to collapse down onto it, stopping any chance of Bloom surviving, even if he was stood a good distance away from the bomb. He heard people whip out phones and dial the police, and Loman slipped away before they arrived, avoiding being detected.

_10:35:59 a.m._

CTU Agent Tom Baker had been called in to CTU at 10am that morning. Erin Driscoll had called him on his supposed day off and said that there was an urgent crisis and he was needed to help manage a field team. He put on his gear and by 9:20am he was out of the door, much to his wife's dismay. He sadly smiled at Emily Baker who had specially prepared a wonderful looking picnic for a nice day out on one of her husband's rare days off. He avoided her eyes and pulled the door shut behind himself. When he got outside the CTU vehicle was already there, and a team of three men accompanied Baker to the point where he and team would convene with Jack Bauer. Baker took the driver's seat and pulled away, taking one last look at his suburban house, just catching the unhappy glint of his wife's eye watching him leave.

Jack pulled up to the meeting point where Tom Baker and his team were situated. He got out of the car and walked up to Baker. They shook hands, having not seen each other for several months.

"Tom, good to see you," Jack began.

"You too Jack, you too." Baker responded.

Without wasting any time on small talk, they began to devise a plan. Whilst Curtis and the three members of the TAC team simply stood and watched, Jack and Baker talked incredibly fast for several minutes as if they were two high school girls who had not seen each other for years. In the end Curtis just about managed to understand that he and Jack would sneak up on the hostiles, trying to stop them from detecting their presence, and Baker and his team would keep a distance and only come in if absolutely necessary.

Jack checked his watch; the attack would be going down in just over an hour, so they would need to set off now. The conference hall was at least half an hour away, so Jack signalled to Curtis to get in the car. Feeling that he had made no contribution to the plan whatsoever, and rightly so, Curtis obliged. Baker also took that as a sign for him to rally his team back to the car, and as soon as the doors slammed shut the vehicles sped off.

Michael Skinner was tapping on a keyboard. He had arrived back at the President's offices about an hour ago, and was initiating the next phase of his plan. Every ten minutes or so he checked back on his PDA which had a constant image showing the President's tracker, confirming to him that he was where he was supposed to be.

Using a series of backchannels that, unless he was either the President or a very good hacker (which he was), he would not normally have been able to access, Skinner managed to get into the President's personal folders. Whilst there, he created a file from pieces of code he had stored on a memory chip. Combining the information as instructed, Skinner managed to create evidence that, if all went to plan, would implicate the President in what he and his WildFires comrades planned to do – burn down the forests surrounding Los Angeles.

It was the perfect plan, and it would make Keeler look like a fool. His recent campaign to knuckle down on carbon emissions and greenhouse gases were his plan to get re-election, but if he was seen to be involved in the purposeful destruction of hundreds of acres of forest land that would be the single biggest contribution to global warming the world has ever seen, then the President would be greatly humiliated and would have no chance of rising to re-election. Skinner allowed himself a brief grin at the brilliance of the plan before snapping it back and getting back on with the work.

_10:50:50 a.m._

In their safe house, Loman handed out the Secret Service IDs to the seven other members of their group. All were American, it had been decided that that would make things a lot more convincing.

"Now you all know what we are doing here. This is it; we won't have another shot like this." The men around him nodded. All were wearing official looking suits, and wore guns at their belts as if they had nothing to hide. Several had sunglasses covering their eyes, adding to the air of mystery that surrounds the Secret Service, emphasised by their elusive name. Loman pointed to the door and the men filed out. They piled into several cars – all black SUVs – and drove away, putting the plan into place.

Kim leapt off the bus before it even pulled to a stop. To the driver's anger, as well as to that of the drivers of several other vehicles close by, Kim bolted across the street, still carrying Angela, and smashed through the front door of the hospital. She ran up to the main reception. There was clearly a line of people who looked unhappy that Kim went straight to the desk, but she was not interested.

"Chase Edmunds? Have you got a Chase Edmunds?"

The nurse looked at her sceptically. Kim was frantic, her face jerked into a worried look. The nurse managed to pull her oddly disapproving eyes away from Kim long enough to type name into the old looking computer in front of her. After several seconds, occupied by the loud whirring of the computer, there was a beep and the nurse announced to Kim – "Room 404, take the stairs, first door on your-" But once again Kim had left before anyone had finished serving her. The nurse watched her run all the way to the stairs, and then as soon as Kim fell out of view, she collapsed into the small chair behind the desk.

Jack gripped the steering wheel tighter, hoping that the harder he held it, the faster he would go. Curtis looked at his hands in shock as Jack's knuckles turned white, but Jack seemed not to notice. Flicking his vision between the front windscreen and the back mirror, checking that Baker was in hot pursuit, Jack sped down the little alleyway.

An old woman looked frightened to death as the two huge black CTU SUVs sped down the suburban road, narrowly scraping in between the cars on either side of the road. Despite having his seat belt on, Curtis grabbed the seat itself for security. They hit a speed bump and the vehicle leapt feet off the ground and seemed to glide through the air for a few seconds. Curtis' head bashed the roof but he refrained from letting Jack know; he did not want to anger him.

Jack performed a hand brake turn, skidding left onto a main road. But what he saw, he did not anticipate. The road was blocked as far as the eye could see by the morning traffic of Los Angeles, and it did not look to be breaking up any time soon. Jack smacked the steering wheel, "Dammit!"

**Episode 09: 11.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.**

_11:00:44 a.m._

"Sorry Almeida," the sympathetic looking guard said, "Doesn't look like you'll be getting out just yet." He patted Tony on the shoulder before pulling the bars across his cell. His name was Dale. He had been called in to replace Burns after his untimely death. The riot had subsided, and the guards had managed to overpower the prisoners and those that were still alive were escorted back to their cells. "Someone'll be along soon and you'll have to tell them everything you know about the riot." Dale walked away and Tony fell onto his bed. His face screwed up in anger and he punched the wall. Immediately regretting the decision, Tony help back a yelp of pain as blood burnt through the fresh scars on his hand. He had cleaned up his face after being punched by Gums, but it still throbbed. He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror above the sink. One whole half of his face was swollen. He didn't want Michelle to see him like this, but that was better than being stuck in this jail cell for another hour. Tony wondered how long it would be until this other person that Dale had mentioned would come. Then he would be let out, surely.

Tony moved from the sink to the barred window. He was on the second level, but could still see out to the yard. The dead prisoners and guards had been grouped together in a big pile on the ground. A sheet had been placed over them, but arms and legs hung out from under it. There were several injured guards nearby with doctors stood over them, checking their eyes with torches and their reactions with hammers to the knees. But the problems faced today were physiological. Guards at prisons were accustomed to such mass murders; usually it's just making prisoners go about their daily life. Tony pulled his eyes away and felt the unfamiliar sting of tears. _God, I can't wait to get out of here_, he thought to himself. He sat back down on the bed and buried his face in his hands.

Kim stroked Chase's head softly. She had found him easily enough, but he was sleeping when she arrived. The nurse said that it was because of the drugs after the surgery, and he needed to get some rest. _I need some Goddamn rest_, Kim thought to herself, but she did not articulate her feelings. She pulled up a chair and just sat with Chase, stroking his head. She laid Angela next to Chase, and she curled up close to him. There was a large stitch across Chase's side, but Kim avoided looking at it. His face had some minor cuts and bruises, but nothing worse than he had faced before.

She continued to look at him and smiled, and still stroked his head. Kim took Chase's hand and tucked hers within it, and his warm body kept her feeling safe.

_11:12:11 a.m._

Jack scowled towards the traffic as they inched forwards. Baker had just managed to swing his SUV into the road in the ten minutes it had been since Jack had made it there. The rush hour lasted all morning in Los Angeles, and Jack realised that there was not chance they would make it to the conference hall to stop the attack. Curtis tried to look away, but an awkward silence hung between them. Suddenly, a plan landed in Jack's head. He whipped out his phone and called up CTU.

"O'Brian."

"Chloe, it's Jack. We need a chopper right away." Curtis broke out of bemusement and looked in shock at Jack. There was nowhere for miles they could land a chopper.

"Where do you need it sent to?"

"As close to our position as possible." At CTU, Chloe traced where Jack was by using the on-board tracking system installed into all CTU vehicles. She found him on Los Angeles' main street and huffed. In the SUV, Jack craned his neck to glance around for a possible landing spot. "Fox Plaza. Land it on top of there."

Several towers were located in Century City, including the Century Plaza Towers, the tallest buildings outside of downtown Los Angeles. However, Fox Plaza was also incredibly tall, and more appropriate. The location of 20th Century Fox, the tower had a flat roof and Chloe saw how it was plausible for a helicopter to land on it. However, it would be hard enough to get a pilot willing to do it, never mind convincing Erin Driscoll to sign off on it.

"You know Driscoll will never go for it." Chloe said; the voice of reason.

"Transfer me through to her."

Chloe pressed a few buttons on the phone and Erin Driscoll received a call in her office. "Driscoll."

"Miss Driscoll, its Chloe. I've got Jack on the line.

"Put him through." Chloe pressed a few more buttons and connected Jack and Driscoll together. "Jack? It's Erin."

Jack quickly explained what was going on to Erin Driscoll. After he finished, there was a pause of about five seconds. Jack knew this was Driscoll trying to either think up a new way of saying no to Jack, or trying to think of another solution. He heard her open her mouth, about to speak, but she reconsidered and stayed silent. Jack pleaded his case some more.

"C'mon Erin, this is the only way we can get through the traffic to the President before the attack occurs!" He was beginning to shout by the end of his speech.

"Jack, before I can even sign off on it we need someone from District to agree, and we'll need to call someone at the Fox Plaza..."

"Then stop wasting time and get on and do all of that!" Jack knew that this meant she had actually agreed to go along with the plan. Jack was surprised, but did not ponder over the fact too long. This needed to happen as soon as possible, and Jack realised the first thing he could do to speed the process up was to hang up on Driscoll.

Erin looked at the phone as if it had just sworn at her. She was shocked that Jack had hung up so abruptly, but realised she needed to get on and do some work. Jack Bauer was a crazy bastard, but what had to be done, had to be done. She picked up the phone again and called the number for District.

"District HQ, McGill." Lynn McGill answered. He had been at District for only six months, but had proved himself prominently there. He was a rising star and after four months was promoted to Assistant Regional District Director after his experience. After proving himself at Division and serving two years as a Division Supervisor, taking over from the newly promoted Brad Hammond, McGill had worked his way up the government ladder to District. Word in the office these days suggested that he was being considered for Regional District Director; another notch on the bedpost as far as McGill was concerned.

He had worked throughout last night, hoping the night shift would earn him brownie points as far as the District bosses were concerned. It had been an uneventful night with just the one call from CTU Los Angeles about an imposter agent or something. He had received a follow-up call several hours later, a few hours _ago_ now, confirming that everything had been sorted. In fact, his shift would be finishing in around half an hour, so unless a major crisis erupted he could get a nice afternoon nap.

"Agent McGill, it's Erin Driscoll here at CTU." She sighed, and began to try to explain the obscurity of what was happening.

_11:33:17 a.m._

Jack rattled his fingers along the dashboard impatiently. They had been in the jam over half an hour and they had moved about the distance of one car forward. He yanked the handbrake up as they pulled to another complete stop. He exhaled heavily showing his discontent, but Curtis was already assured that Agent Bauer was not in a good mood. He shifted about in his seat, but saw no way out of the awkwardness.

The President was already late for his question session. He looked at himself one last time in the mirror and straightened his tie for what must have been the eighth time. Mark Kanar approached him and gently pushed him towards the door. "Mr. President, it's time."

For the last half hour they had been planning answers to the possible questions that the press might have about his new policies. However, the polls suggested that in general the population supported Keeler and his decisions, and the President hoped that many of the members of the press might just be congratulating him on such innovative and effective plans. Keeler walked through the door which took him to an outside venue. There was a long, wooden table along the front of the building he had just exited. Along it sat important members of Keeler's administration, with a space in the centre for Keeler himself to sit, and a chair on his left hand side empty for Mark Kanar to sit in. Keeler was surprised to see the seat to his right was also free; where was Skinner? Puzzled, Keeler headed toward his chair. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and smiled to the hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the table. There were many seats, and people near the back would have no chance of seeing or hearing the action. To account for this a huge screen had been drawn over the front of the building behind the wooden table and a recording of Keeler was being projected on to it, as was sound from the microphone clipped to his tie being sent to the speakers that surrounded the front of the conference hall. It was a grassed area, and the edges were lined with high rise towers. Keeler looked around and saw Secret Service personnel manning every window in each tower block. Finally he reached the chair and after waving to the crowd to quiet down, he began to point to members of the press – given priority seating at the front of the congregation – and they grilled him on his new policies.

Unbeknownst to Keeler, Chris Loman and seven of his best men were part of the Secret Service detail that had just taken over some of the locations that he had looked towards. Grouped in one tower block, six men stood in a very tight circle, hiding another of the men that held a sniper rifle. Balanced on the metal balcony of one of the tower flats, he aimed it right at Keeler's head. However, now was not the time. They had been given precise instructions as to when to shoot. _As soon as he begins his speech_, the words of Hamri Ali echoed in Chris Loman's head. The man in the centre slid the rifle into his jacket and stood from his crouching position. The men dispersed slightly, and whilst not moving far from the original location they looked around the crowd as if trying to dispel any possible threats.

_11:40:12 a.m._

Jack felt like smashing the windscreen. He rocked backwards and forwards in his seat, finding it to be the best way to calm himself. Suddenly, he heard the glorious, familiar whirring of the sound of an approaching helicopter and shoved open the sunroof of the car. He almost leapt out, but was blinded by the near-midday sun beaming down on him. Covering his eyes with a raised right hand Jack saw the shining blue stallion of a CTU chopper swing over the top of the traffic. People on the streets nearby looked alarmed as the dangerously low chopper at first appeared to be about to crash straight into one of the Century City towers. It swept up at the last moment and hover above the Fox Plaza, finding the exact best spot to land. Momentarily mesmerised, Jack was broken away from gazing at the helicopter by a ringing of his phone. Knowing it would be Erin Driscoll, Jack motioned to Curtis to get out of the car, then turned to Baker in the car behind and gave a similar action. All six men exited their vehicles and, to the annoyance of the people in the cars behind, left them empty in the middle of the traffic jam. Jack picked up the phone.

"This is CTU-Alpha-5 to District Los Angeles HQ. Chopper is landed, awaiting arrivals, repeat: awaiting arrivals. Over." Pilot Jim Cohen touched the top of the tower with the rims of the chopper.

"Thank you, very much, pilot. Please keep us updated." Lynn McGill responded before handing up the phone. He had had one of the strangest fifteen minutes of his whole District career. Erin Driscoll called him and explained about a threat to the President (which he had not been told about beforehand, to his annoyance), then explained that he needed to sanction the landing of a CTU chopper on top of one of the tallest towers out of downtown Los Angeles. He knew Driscoll on a professional basis, and she was a by-the-book agent, suggesting that the operation was vitally important. He had hung up and proceeded to call the head of 20th Century Fox and, rather than ask permission, explain that extreme government business needed to use the roof as a landing pad for a helicopter that would be landing post-haste. Terms that like tended to either confuse or bore most people, and so that stage of the plan was successful. McGill then had to call his seniors at District and explain the situation, and after they gave it the go-ahead he then called a CTU pilot who set of immediately. The whole thing had taken some of McGill's hardest work and he was proud of himself for it. He leant back in his chair and dialled the number for Erin Driscoll who then passed the information on to Agent Bauer who would be getting in the chopper with a team of five other men. McGill had made sure to tell the head of Fox that Agent Bauer and his team needed to be let through security straight away, and had promptly sent images and a short dossier on each man.

Jack raced through the crowds of people, knocking several over in his rush to the elevator. He finally made it and, making sure the team were all close behind, pressed the button for the highest floor the elevator would go. The six CTU agents were accompanied in the lift by three office workers who Jack presumed did not need to go to such a high floor, but dare not press a button to stop the ascending box. They sped upwards and eventually reached the floor and, led by Jack, sped out of the elevator and towards a final set of stairs which took them outside to the roof. As soon as he opened the door Jack was deafened by the noise of the helicopter's blades spinning at half capacity. Pilot Cohen had been under strict instructions to keep the engine going as much as possible to allow as quick a leaving as possible. As soon as the last man hopped into the back the chopper ascended. Jack, situated next to Cohen in the passenger seat, put on a pair of ear muffs to dull the sound of engine and listened in on the pilot telling someone at District that they had taken off. Jack heard him say that they would arrive at the location in seven to eight minutes. He checked his wristwatch: that would give them less than five minutes to find the targets and neutralise them before they shot the President, which is assuming that they would not pre-emptively take him out at the first signs of trouble. He shook off the fears and watched the city of Los Angeles move below them.

_11.56.12 a.m._

The helicopter finally approached the location. Coming round the back of the conference hall for surprise, Jack received a buzz on his phone. He had it routed through the ear muffs, and began to speak to Erin Driscoll.

"Jack, we've just got word that eight Secret Service personnel who no-one has ever heard of before entered the campus around fifteen minutes ago."

"That's them," Jack muttered, but probably too quiet for Driscoll to hear.

"They arrived on the west tower blocks, and are on the tenth floor."

"Got it," he replied.

Jack hung up, seeing no need to continue the conversation any longer. He leant over to the pilot and explained the situation. He nodded, and veered the chopper away from making an entrance over the conference hall, and instead went for a direct entry from behind the tower blocks.

"The policies I am instating should be in place within the next few months, thank you Ian," The President confidently responded to one of the questions. So far everything had been going perfectly. Keeler opened his mouth to say the name of another press member that would grill him when he saw a helicopter spin around the outside of one of the tower blocks. He muttered, "Oh my God," but the microphone picked it up loud and clear and it was amplified around the whole of the stadium, drawing everybody's attention to the scene at the tower blocks.

**Episode 10: 12.00 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.**

_12.00.02 p.m._

Loman scrambled to get to the sniper rifle. Now was the only time, they had to take the shot. He shoved past one of the other men, who joined with the others in making a protective barrier around Loman to protect him from the onslaught of the Secret Service agents. The fired again and again taking down every agent that ran in their direction. The seven men took down any man that arrived before he could even straighten his blazer. By the time Loman had prepared himself there was a pile of bodies blocking the area for anyone to pass.

Jack opened the window of the chopper and began to fire his HK USP Compact at the terrorists. It was no match for Curtis in the back, firing the helicopter's inbuilt machine gun, but he knew he could take out a few men. Several of the terrorists were ripped in half by the extreme power of the machine gun, attracting Loman's attention. He glanced up and cursed; angered that he would have to rearrange himself. He grabbed the sniper rifle and smashed through the feebly wooden door to his right. Jack saw him running away and realised that he would be hard to track inside the building. Curtis had managed to kill all the other men, left in piles on the ledge. He had stopped firing and the screams and shouts from the audience below became audible. More Secret Service agents had rounded the corner as had many before then, but this time were not met with gunshots. They saw the bodies on the floor and the CTU chopper in the air and quickly assessed the situation. Jack made a snap decision, realising that his plan would be the only way to stop the man who had run away.

He slung open the door of the chopper, much to the pilot's surprise. It caused him to jerk the handles and the chopper veered towards the building, threatening to crash into it. Pilot Cohen managed to steer it back into place and as soon as it was Jack leapt onto the ledge and landed with a thud on the wooden rafters.

Jack stood up from his crouched position and, aiming his gun, headed in the same direction Loman had. The Secret Service agents realised what he was doing and began to follow him as backup. Cohen deduced that he had nothing else to do here and by the time Cutis shouted at him to find a place to land he had already begun to move the chopper away.

Suddenly able to hear again properly now the chopper was clear, Jack breathed a sigh of relief. Not fair into the room was a flight of stairs downwards. Jack quickly surveyed the rest of the room but realised that there was nowhere else to go, and headed down the stairs, followed by the squadron of Secret Service. The next floor held more questions. After reaching the foot of the staircase, Jack spotted three doors, and another flight of stairs going further down. Jack motioned to the agents behind him, ordering two to go in each door. Realising that a government agent such as Jack was in their presence, the agents decided to obey his commands. Jack took the next flight of stairs, followed by the last remaining Secret Service agent who had not gone through the doors.

Jack reached a similar set of rooms in the next flight of stairs. Suddenly he heard a shot from the floor above and, shoving past the agent behind him, made his way back up. Outside one of the rooms was the body of one of the agents. The man behind Jack gasped as he saw him, but was relieved to see that the man on the floor was still alive.

"Davis? Davis... can you hear me?" said Patterson, the man who had accompanied Jack.

"He... he shot me?" Davis sounded surprised. Realising that the man was conscious enough to talk to, Jack approached him.

"Which way did he go? C'mon, _which way_?" He asked, raising his voice to attract more attention. David feebly pointed towards one of the other doors, and without wasting any time, Jack leapt up and set off. After a moment's hesitation, Patterson followed. Jack burst through the door and saw two more dead agents lying on the floor. Behind them was a trap door slung wide open. Jack looked down and saw a ladder that went down to the next floor. Jack slid down the ladder, followed seconds later by Patterson.

He turned around and looked out over the balcony, and saw another rickety, metal ladder that reached all the way down to the ground. Jack could hear the faint _clinks_ of shoes running down them, a long distance away. Jack cursed, and pulled out his walkie talkie.

Curtis had arrived in the square after Pilot Cohen dropped him off in a field close by. He felt something on his belt buzz, and picked up his walkie.

"Curtis? Jack. The final assailant has escaped down a metal ladder in the east building. Get to the bottom ASAP and intercept."

"Roger."

Curtis slid the walkie back into his belt as he began to run. Screaming crowds that still awaited the end of the President's speech did not slow him as he reached the building. Curtis saw a body slide in a narrow passageway between two of the buildings and chased after him. There was barely enough space to move, made harder by the many obstacles that lay down the path; trash cans, shopping carts, planks of wood. Curtis had the edge; he had special training that clearly the assailant did not. Curtis began to draw closer...

Jack looked down from his position of power, several flights off the ground. He saw from a bird's eye view two figures running along the thin passageway, and quickly identified them as the bad guy and Curtis. In front of him was a pipeline, and Jack made a snap decision. He grabbed hold of it and, to the surprise of Agent Patterson, flung himself down. Sliding down the pipeline, Jack came closer and closer to the assailant. He had planned the slide right and jumped off one storey before the ground, landing right in front of the guy Curtis was chasing.

Shocked, Loman stopped motionless on the spot. Before he had time to understand what had happened, Curtis tackled him from behind and knocked him to the ground. He was winded, and coughed – trying to recover air in his lungs.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief, then fell to the floor. It had been a pretty gruelling chase, but they had managed to catch the bad guy. Suddenly, a group of Secret Service agents arrived and surrounded the three men. They looked sternly down at Jack and Curtis: arms folded, eyes hidden behind glasses. Jack stood up first, brushing some dust off his jacket, allowing time for Curtis to stand up himself, and then drag the assailant up. Jack whipped out his I.D., as did Curtis, and without a word from the agents they walked away, receiving a nod as they did.

_12:29:09 p.m._

Tony Almeida was feeling relieved. He had just spent the last forty minutes explaining everything he could remember about the riot that had taken place earlier that morning, and how it had escalated into such a massacre. The female interviewer, Mary Vaughan, had been very understanding, and clearly believed everything he had said. She seemed like the first person he had encountered in the prison who did not despise him, but maybe that was because she did not know what he was in for.

He had given as accurate account as he could remember, recorded by a camera, voice recorder and notepad. Finally the woman had said that she had heard enough, and nodded to a guard who was standing in the shadows at the back of the room, who then took Tony back towards his cell.

Walking past all the other inmates, Tony pushed his hands threw his hair. Pleased that it was finally over, he turned to the guard as he walked into his cell.

"Hey, when d'ya think I'll be getting outta here?" He muttered, not wishing to attract attention from other inmates.

"I dunno Mac," the guard replied, "I guess you'll find out sometime after lunch." As he walked away, Tony rolled his eyes. That would mean having to survive another meal before being allowed to leave. He slid his hands away from the bars and slouched down onto his bed, rubbing his hands through his hair again.

"O'Brian," Chloe said as she picked up the phone in between typing.

"Chloe, it's Jack," Unusually, Chloe stopped typing, eager to hear what Jack had to say. On the other end of the line, Jack was driving speedily down Los Angeles' main roads, heading for the financial district; the location of CTU. "We stopped the shooter, and we're bringing him in now. Found an I.D. badge on him, he's called Loman."

After finding the I.D. badge, Jack had deduced that Loman was the person talking to Hamri Ali on the phone when they arrived at the house downtown, who then was simply known as "L". However, there was still something Jack could not work out about the whole situation. What did Hamri Ali have to do with the forest fires threat that he had learnt about earlier in the morning. He posed the question to Chloe.

"I don't know Jack, but maybe this Loman guy knows something about it," she responded.

In the car, Jack pulled up to a red light, and glanced over his shoulder. In the backseat was Loman, with a bloodied face and a bruised eye. Jack looked over his tired-looking features, down to his handcuffed hands. In the seat next to him was Curtis, who was keeping a close eye on the prisoner. Jack turned back to see the light turning amber, then went to green. Switching his foot from the clutch to the accelerator, he headed onwards. The traffic was bad at this time of day, and movement was slow. Jack decided to take some side streets to make it back to CTU sooner. He looked out of his open window, allowing the cool air to blow over his face. He realised that Chloe was still talking to him, and snapped back to attention.

"...and there's always Ali whose still here, you could see what you can get out of him when you get back here," Chloe concluded.

"Y..yeah, that's a good idea, Chloe," Jack responded, trying to sound as if he had heard everything she said. However, he did think it was smart to see what else Ali knew. Jack glanced at Loman again, this time in the rear view mirror. Loman returned the look, glaring at Jack with a fiery anger. Jack blinked, then focused on the road again.

_12.40.20 p.m._

Chloe hung up the phone just as Erin Driscoll approached her, bubbling with questions.

"Who was that? Was it Jack? What did he say? Did he get anyone alive?"

Chloe sighed and waited a long time before responding to Driscoll, knowing how much it annoyed her. She pretended to finish typing up the last sections of a document, when in fact she had started and finished a new one altogether, before turning around and looking at Driscoll. She pulled her mouth into an awkward position, slumped her arm under her chin, then began to speak.

"It was Jack, and he got one of the guys alive. He's called Loman-"

"Start working up a trace on all forms of the name..."

"Already started it," Chloe retorted before Driscoll could finish.

Driscoll sighed, annoyed at how Chloe had interrupted her, but continued nonetheless, "Got anything yet?"

Chloe spun back on her chair to face her screen again, tapped a few keys effortlessly, and spun the monitor around so Driscoll could see it. The Special Agent in Charge altered the position of the monitor so she could see the contents of the screen. It was a list of over 500 names.

"This is what you've come up with?" Driscoll questioned, clearly unimpressed.

"Loman isn't a lot to go on, Miss Driscoll. These are all the 'Loman's who are known to have been in the US within the last month, who have a criminal record. We don't even know if Loman is his real name. When he gets here we can take some finger prints and see if he matches any of them."

Driscoll sighed again, this time unhappy that, despite the amazing technology that existed today, they could not even identify a person. "Fine," she replied, then added, "did Jack say how far out he was?"

"It'll take him about half an hour to get back here, there's traffic everywhere and he's a long way out."

Driscoll walked away without saying anything else, and Chloe huffed as she went.

"...The President was not harmed the assassination attempted as a helicopter with government agents approached seconds before the terrorists could take a shot. One agent leapt from the chopper to the apartment buildings and chased down the leader of the organisation, who was taken into custody. No more information about the leader has been given at this time. Stay tuned for more on the story. This is Robin Lowe reporting for CNB News; Los Angeles."

The news story wrapped up and Kim Bauer turned off the television as it did so. After sitting with Chase for about an hour she had felt fatigue beginning to get the better of her, and so decided to turn on the television. She had been watching the preparations for the President's speech on his new policies regarding green fuels and the rainforests, and anticipating watching the speech itself, but just as it had started she witnessed the interruption by the government agents. As the unnamed agent jumped out of the chopper, courageously chasing the leader of the terrorist cell, Kim wondered what part her father played in the takedown. The unmistakeable CTU logo was blazed across the helicopter, but as usual the name of the government agency was not given. For the last fifty minutes the footage was played over and over again, and the assassination attempt took first place in terms of news stories over others which were reduced to a sentence, scrolling along the bottom of the screen.

Kim switched off the TV as the news story ended and focused her attention on Angela who had begun to whine. Chase, still unconscious, lay unaware of everything that was happening around him.

As Kim turned off the television, Michael Skinner cursed loudly in anger at it. He was still at the President's office, and had just finished setting up all the data necessary to implicate Keeler in the plan he and his superiors had set out to do.

After finishing, he turned on the television to relax for a few minutes before heading back to Sleiman, and was shocked to see the events that were unfolding on the screen. He watched as footage was played in slow motion of Keeler's face morphing from a smile to a look of terror. The camera panned across to the right and zoomed out to show a helicopter of government agents attacking a supposed group of terrorists who were planning to assassinate Keeler. _Why didn't Sleiman tell me this was also happening today_, Skinner asked himself.

He cursed again, then threw a mug at the screen, smashing both. A slow, almost invisible line of smoke erupted from the screen's core where the cup had collided with it and the image cut out instantly. Skinner bared his teeth at the screen, knowing that he should not have acted upon his rage but still angered and confused as to what was going on. He turned and made his way out of the room, slamming the door as he went.

_12.54.59 p.m._

Jack continued down the road, occasionally glancing in the rear view mirror at Loman. He could not help thinking that something was going on. He looked directly in Loman's eyes, who again glared back at him. He looked to the side, and saw that Curtis was keeping a good eye on the prisoner. He looked back to the road, and just as he did he heard the soft thud of an elbow being forced into someone's face.

He turned all the way around, facing Loman. He saw Curtis, already unconscious, following the bumps of the road with his slackened neck. Jack turned to Loman, who grabbed his arm with his chained up hands, forcing the vehicle into the other side of the road. Jack tired to fight it, but Loman had caught him by surprise and the SUV went flying into a smaller car. The female driver looked terrified and screamed, the last thing Jack remembered before being knocked unconscious.

**Episode 11: 1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.**

_1.02.19 p.m._

"...call an ambulance! I said _someone call an ambulance_!" He heard a voice yell as he returned to the world consciousness. He fluttered his eyelashes, a technique taught upon training at government agencies as the first thing to do after a crash, to stop any blood or other liquid dripping into your eyes. At first the scene was blurry, but things came into focus soon enough. As soon as he could see out of the front windshield he felt a pressure on his arm and turned to see Loman slumped between the back and front seats, in the same position as before when he successfully attempted to crash the SUV.

Jack moved his arm to feel Loman's pulse and felt a stabbing pain just as he did so. Someone in the crowd of people around the two vehicles noticed the movement and called out, "Hey buddy! Are you alright? Look, look he's moving! Are you OK?" Jack opened his mouth, and it took a few attempted before he could utter any words.

"Is... she... dead?" He panted, and pointed his finger in the general direction of the car in front. Everyone's attention momentarily moved from Jack as they all looked to the other car. A second later they all looked back, suggesting to Jack that they already knew the fate of the woman. Jack looked into the faces of those who were closest to him, but what he heard was not what he expected from looking at their expressions.

"She's alive, but pretty badly bashed up."

Jack tried to nod, but wasn't sure if it came out as he planned. Jack did not care; he was just pleased that the woman was alive. Figuring there was nothing he could do at this moment; Jack closed his eyes and waited for the ambulance to arrive.

Andrew Putney slammed out the back door of CTU. Drawing his pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, he found his lighter and heaved in. Closing his eyes to get the full sensation, he exhaled slowly, enjoying every second that the light grey air filled his insides. He had had a stressful morning, and had decided to award himself a five minute cigarette break. The back of CTU was a scummy place; the paving was uneven and there was litter everywhere, carelessly thrown towards in the direction of the dumpsters. Next to one was an upturned oil canister and Andrew went and sat on it.

Taking another puff, his attention was caught by a glint in the corner of his eye. He looked over, pushing the glasses on the end of his nose further up towards his eyes. He looked beyond their deep frames to the I.D. badge heedlessly dropped to the floor. Standing up from the oil canister, he went over and picked up the badge. He instantly recognised it, and drew in a deep breath. He cautiously held the edge of the badge and headed back into CTU, confident that the I.D. badge of the fake Jack Bauer that had entered CTU in the early hours of the morning was a promising lead that should be explored.

Chloe cursed under her breath, slamming the phone back into its receiver for the fourth time in the last three minutes. Chloe knew that in times of a crisis she spent a lot of time on the phone, but was surprised at this point to find that she currently could not get in contact with Jack. She heard the quiet footsteps of someone approaching her from behind, and after a moment's more typing, she spun around in her chair.

Stood behind her was Andrew Putney, a gleeful smile slapped across his face, with a badge in his hand that he held through a tissue. Chloe looked back and forth between Andrew's idiotic smile and the tissue-protected hand, waiting for the man to say something. Her eyebrows rose in the middle, creating an expression of question across her face. Andrew's smile dipped, and realised what he had was not as self-explanatory as he had anticipated, decided to explain his find.

"Miss O'Brian," he began, something that she hated being called, "Remember this morning when I told you Jack Bauer had been here, but we discovered that it was an alias of someone who wanted to find out about CTU's current threats?"

She rolled her eyes, obviously remembering the given event. Andrew took her movement to suggest that she did remember, and continued. "This is the I.D. badge he showed us before we talked to him."

Chloe's interest perked and she realised that Andrew was holding the badge through the tissue to preserve any possible fingerprints that could be found from the badge. She nodded at him, and he tilted the badge so she could see what was on it, no longer hidden from her view by the glare of the lights on the card's lamination.

The badge looked genuine at first glance. It was an I.D. card of a supposed "Jack Bauer" at District headquarters. However, the photograph on the card showed this "Jack" to look very different from anyone Chloe knew. The card gave an employee number, date of birth and branch I.D. Chloe soon started to notice some differences between this and a real District badge.

"You let this guy in with _this_ badge?" Chloe asked, shocked that Andrew could make such a mistake. He waited for her to elaborate. "Look, the blue stripes down the side? They are at least twice as wide as that on a real badge! And the border around the photo should be black, not gray! The employee number is three digits longer than a real one, and the badge doesn't have the official coding signature across the back," she motioned as she spoke, "Jeez, how could you make such a mistake?"

Andrew looked back at Chloe, shell-shocked. He wandered away towards the forensics department. He was too far away to hear Chloe's muttering, "And Jack's middle name isn't Harry!"

_1.20.40 p.m._

The whirring sound of an approaching ambulance filled Jack's ears and he decided to open his eyes. He saw less people than before, evidently some had somewhere better to be. The ambulance came into view, and Jack longed to know if Loman was still alive. He knew he was unable to reach him from his current position, and so decided to wait and hear the paramedic's verdict. One of them arrived and unstrapped Jack's belt. Jack saw out of the windscreen another going for the woman in the car they crashed in to. The paramedic counted to three, then hoisted Jack out of the car. He quickly carried him to a stretcher in the ambulance. It was large inside, enough room for everyone. Jack felt his stretcher being pushed further back into the ambulance to make way for everyone else.

Slowly the woman, Loman and Curtis were all brought into the ambulance. Jack looked over at Curtis; he was not in a good shape. Blood trickled down his head, and there was a large gash sliced through his head. Jack turned his attention to Loman. A paramedic was feeling his pulse. Jack waited tensely; surely they should have found something by now?

Finally the paramedic gave a brief smile, indicating to Jack that he had found Loman to be alive. The paramedic hopped out of the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors shut, causing a loud clanging noise that rattled in Jack's ears.

He ran around to the front of the ambulance and got in the driver's seat, closely followed by his partner. They set off the sirens and headed to the hospital. Jack realised that it would be even longer before he got to CTU, and he had no way of contacting them to explain what had happened. There was a medical clinic at CTU, but there were not enough facilities to deal with four patients at the same time, especially in the condition that they were in. Jack sighed, realising there was nothing he could do, and resigned to lying on the stretcher as calmly as possible.

David Palmer looked at himself in the mirror. He wore a sky blue shirt with a darker tie, and a jacket. He adjusted the tie, unable to decide whether to have it pushed all the way up to his collar or lower down, looking more relaxed. Going out into the street was still a problem, but he had insisted that this time he would not be accompanied by a battalion of Secret Service agents. This was something he wanted to do on his own.

It was the first time he had properly seen his son and daughter since the death of their mother. After he explained what had happened, _everything_ that had happened from Wayne and Julia Milliken's affair, to Alan Milliken's death to Julia's murder-suicide, Nicole and Keith had been unwilling to see him. Viewing Palmer as a cause of their mother's death, neither of them had wanted to spend much time with him. He had been over to see Keith at his apartment, but Keith had closed the door on him. Nicole had dropped out of her Law degree, and Palmer had called her to see if she wanted to talk about it but she said that hearing his voice made her think of her mother.

For several months he had gone without seeing Wayne; bound to him by the death of their loved ones but separated through his part in Sherry's murder, with the latter taking precedent and forcing Palmer into next to no human contact. He occasionally left his penthouse suite to buy simple things from a corner shop, but he was too recognisable to lead a normal life. He spent most of his days writing up memoirs which he ended up scrapping, looking over security memos about the latest threats or occasionally going into the back garden of the suite and playing a little basketball. However, he didn't have much energy for it, and always ended up retreating inside before too long.

Palmer had got word that Nicole and Keith were living together after Nicole did not have enough money to pay for her own place. He decided that it would be a good time to go and see them, together, and managed to talk them into having lunch with him.

And so here he was. He pulled his tie down a notch, frowned at himself again in the mirror and pulled the whole thing undone angrily, decided to start again.

Chase blinked as he came into consciousness. Kim gasped as he saw him to do so, relieved that he was awake, but upset as she saw his red eyes. His sclera had been penetrated by a series of red veins that were leaking into the perfect white of his eyes. Kim turned and called a nurse in, who assured her that it was normal and was due to his earlier surgery. As the nurse left, Kim leaned in so close to Chase's face that their noses almost touched, "Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied, with a half smile. He glanced past her and saw Angela sat on the chair, who looked happy to see her father awake. She clapped gleefully and he smiled at her. Kim turned to look, then returned to Chase and asked how he felt.

"I'm alright, just a bit sore on my side," he said. She stroked his head for what felt to him like several moments. However, he considered that maybe only a few seconds had passed. As she kissed him on the cheek he asked, "What happened with that Powell guy?"

Kim looked down at him curiously. He realised that obviously she did not know what he was talking about, but she did understand that he had something to do with what was going on. "Some guys try to assassinate the President while he made his speech about an hour and a half ago. A team from CTU stopped them."

He nodded, but realised that he needed to talk to Chloe for more information. Without moving his head and alerting Kim, Chase saw that his phone was still on the glass table next to him. As if she read his mind, Kim said, "I'm just going to get a drink. Can you watch Angela?"

"Sure," he replied, as she walked out. Chase reached for the phone and despite a splitting pain where his stitches were he got it and turned it on. He dialled the number for CTU, adding Chloe's personal extension code, and called.

"CTU, O'Brian."

"Chloe, it's Chase."

"Chase!" Chloe exclaimed. The analysts quietened in the bullpen and looked over to her. As she continued, they went back to work, "What happened?"

"I was in a car crash, someone was trying to stop me getting to Powell, did you-"

She cut him off, "Don't worry about Powell. We're further on. Do you know what's happening with the President?"

"I've heard some basics..."

Chloe explained what was going on. After several moments she came to a close, "...but like Jack said, what did the _WildFires_ that he had heard about this morning have to do with Ali and this assassination attempt?"

Chase gulped. He had a suspicion, but dared not vocalise it. "I don't know, Chloe. I don't know."

_1.47.11 p.m._

The ambulance screeched into the emergency parking space at the front of St. Thomas Hospital. Immediately teams of paramedics swung open the doors and began to wheel the four patients out. Jack grunted as his stretcher bashed against the floor, and lay back as he was rushed through the main doors of the ER.

Palmer walked over to the door and opened it. Looking at himself one last time in the mirror that hung juxtaposed to it, he approved of the fact that he had decided not to wear a tie. He smiled, the first time he had done so in quite a long time. He shut the door behind him and headed towards _Bistro Italia_, the restaurant they had agreed to meet at and had reservations in at 2.00pm. He took the stairs to go down, feeling like a more active route.

As he reached the bottom level, he nodded to the Secret Service agent who always stayed inside the suite, guarding against any possible threats. He headed out of the door and began to walk the short distance to the restaurant.

Tony Almeida sat down on a secluded table, which in prison was the table right in the centre of the room. He made sure to find one on his own; he did not want to be grilled by any prisoners for causing all those deaths. He glanced around the room nervously, seeing that everyone's eyes were upon him. Even the guards were glaring at him, placing the blame for the death of C.O. Burns.

He tried to wipe the fears from his mind and picked at the slop in front of him. He felt sweat trickle down the underside of his arm, and clenched and unclenched his fist through nervousness. Wiping his brow, he took a swig of water.

Tony looked up again and saw a group of several prisoners heading his way. He was unsure if he was being paranoid, but knowing that they were the type that hanged around, hung around with Gums, Tony didn't bother to wait to see where they were going. He picked up his tray and walked to the exit of the canteen. He was still hungry, but could eat when he got outside. He told the officer at the door that he was hungry, emptied his tray and left, his back burning from all the eyes that scowled into it.

A nurse tapped Jack's leg with a small hammer, triggering a reflex action as expected. Jack sighed as she went through each minor test that could be done to check his health. Jack knew that he had recovered, and was in much better condition than Chase, Loman and the woman from the other car, who Jack learnt was called Teresa Brady.

She moved up to his face. He had some minor cuts and bruises, but nothing too serious. They had insisted on putting a small plaster over an open wound, but besides that he did not look worse off than during any other crisis. She looked into his eye with a bright light, encouraging Jack's pupils to dilate which, of course, they did. He sighed again, and the nurse got the picture.

"OK Mr. Bauer-"

"Agent Bauer," he corrected.

The nurse scowled. "_Agent_ Bauer," she repeated, emphasising the new title, "you're all OK. We'll keep you in for a few hours, the police will need to come and question you about what happened."

"Look, I don't have time for that, we are in the middle of a crisis. I work for the Counter Terrorist Unit, Los Angeles branch," he flashed his badge, "and there is a very serious matter at hand..." Jack looked for the nurse's name badge, "Miss Cunningham."

The nurse looked uncomfortable, shifting side to side. "Amanda," Jack said, using the other half of the name badge to try to establish a more personal connection, "This is a very serious situation, and the life of the President could be in danger."

"What do you need?" She eventually said.

"You need to tell me; did the man in the back of my car survive? Is Loman alive?" When she hesitated, Jack became more agitated. "Tell me!"

**Episode 12: 2.00 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.**

_2.00.05 p.m._

"Well? C'mon, is Loman alive?" Jack demanded.

"He's alive, but in critical condition," Amanda replied.

Jack cursed under his breath. "OK, never mind, thank you." She nodded. "Look," he continued," I need to get out of here. I need to get back to CTU."

"Do you have a medical facility there? I could... I could arrange for a transfer there? But I couldn't do that for any of the other patients without raising suspicion."

"That's fine, just do it for me. How long will it take?"

"Five or ten minutes?"

"OK, you're going to have to do it in two."

David Palmer strode into the restaurant and silence seemed to fall across the room. He looked down, trying to avoid anybody's eyes, but they had already seen him. Palmer walked up to the small man standing behind a counter, whose moustache-rimmed mouth was closed into a small circle.

"Reservation for three, under the name-"

"Yes, yes," the man uttered in a tinted accent, "Right this way... er... Mr. Palmer."

Palmer sighed heavily and followed the arm of the man towards a small table in the corner of the room. He took up the seat that faced away from the rest of the room, and the eyes of the other diners, and stared at the wall. While he waited for his children to arrive, Palmer studied the small cracks and areas where the plaster showed through the wall. Why had no-one bothered to clear it up? Palmer hated to see things that were not perfect. He moved his gaze over to a picture that hung on the wall. Being an Italian restaurant, it seemed fitting that the image was a sketch of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was clearly a computer-generated image, a photograph that had been turned into a sketch that would have fooled the casual viewer. The visible pixels on the tower's framework irritated Palmer, and he looked away.

The waiter approached him with a clear jug that rattled with ice as he walked. "Water, sir?"

"Alright Agent Bauer," Amanda said, walking towards Jack, "here are your release forms. Just take them to the front desk as you leave and-"

Jack was already gone.

As he turned the corner he sprinted down the steps, just bypassing the room in which was his daughter, Kim, sat next to the bed of her boyfriend Chase.

Jack bolted down the stairs and reached the front desk in a matter of seconds. Now fully recovered, he whipped out his phone and pressed speed dial 6, CTU Los Angeles. As he lifted the phone to his ear a doctor frowned at him and pointed to a sign that had a picture of a phone in between the lines of a red cross, with a warning about not having them in the hospital. Jack waved his badge in the face of the doctor, but he had already moved on, busy with a patient.

He started towards the door but was yelled at by a nurse. Remembering the documents, he launched himself towards the desk where the nurse sat, slammed the papers down in front of her and left before she had a chance to exhale. Finally someone answered the call.

"CTU, Putney," Jack was unfamiliar with the name so decided to ask,

"I need to speak to Chloe O'Brian, is she there?"

Andrew typed in some keys on the phone, causing Chloe's to ring. She picked it up and answered in a similar manner to how Andrew had.

"Chloe, it's Jack-"

Before he could continue, "Jack! Where the hell have you been? I've been calling you for the last hour..."

"Chloe look, I don't have time to explain," Jack decided to cut to the chase, "We were in a car crash, Curtis is down, so is the suspect. That leaves Ali as our only lead."

"We could have a problem there, Jack. District is taking him away for further questioning."

Jack stopped running, the first time he had done so since the nurse set him free. "When?"

"Right now, Jim Vaughn called in to see what was happening with him about a half hour ago and then he sent some guy, Ramirez, down to pick him up."

"Dammit," Jack said, "you need to stall them, Chloe."

"What do you want me to do, Jack?"

"Anything. C'mon Chloe we need to stay with him."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do." She began to put the phone down, but Jack yelled,

"Wait!" She asked what he wanted now, "You need to call St. Thomas Hospital, tell them to inform you of what happens with Loman, the suspect."

"Fine, Jack. Oh, do you want me to send a car to pick you up?"

Jack weighed up the option in his head. He could either sprint across town, reaching CTU by taking shortcuts down back alleys, or wait for a car to meander through the midday traffic of Los Angeles.

"I think I'll make it," he eventually replied, and hung up.

_2.17.54 p.m._

Palmer strummed his fingers on the table. Where were they? He checked his watch again; they were almost twenty minutes late. He felt so stupid. To think how happy he was half an hour ago, it was all for nothing. After finishing off his third complementary bread roll, he stood up, straightened his jacket and casually walked out of the restaurant, watched by everyone inside.

"Ramirez!" Chloe called as she got to the Holding cell. "You can't take the prisoner away yet."

"Why not?" He snapped.

"You didn't fill out your paperwork properly." In fact, he had filled it out all perfectly. Chloe had changed the digit on one of the sign-out forms so that the prisoner's I.D. did not match his proper I.D. that was shown on the CTU document.

"What?" He questioned, shocked and certain he could not make such a mistake.

"Yep. Look. It's right here." She pointed to the spot where the mistake had been forged.

"C'mon O'Brian. This guy needs to be taken away for further questioning." He pleaded.

"Well as a matter of fact Jack Bauer is coming in right now to question him."

"Bauer? There's no way Driscoll's going to let him anywhere near Ali, she's the one who fired him!"

"Maybe," Chloe said, "you should get your facts straight before doing things." Chloe snatched the documents back from Ramirez, and continued, "Driscoll is the one who brought him back in."

Ramirez looked stunned. Still holding on to Ali's handcuffed hands, his jaw dropped open. Chloe motioned back to the Holding cell and, after a second's recovery, Ramirez took Ali back in, sat him down, and left.

Chloe heaved a deep sigh of relief, and set about convincing Erin Driscoll to allow Jack back to CTU.

Jim Farris from CTU Data Services picked up the phone. He had been given a fake identification badge for a supposed District officer, and has been asked to recover fingerprints from it. The badge was in bad condition, and had clearly been outside for a long time. The air that had been in contact with it had severely removed any chances of getting a clear match, but Jim was good at his job. Correlating the fingerprint data with the whole database of names that the United States government had to offer, he had narrowed it down to a list of eleven men.

He smiled at his good work, and called Andrew Putney up in the main CTU offices who had given him the badge.

"Andy, it's Jim."

"Oh hey, did you find anything?"

With a laugh, Jim responded, "Well, besides _your_ fingerprints there are eleven other guys who it could possibly be. The prints were preserved well enough to narrow it down to one man."

"Ok, thanks. Send the list up to my screen."

Jim did so, and Andrew scanned through the list. None of the names rang any bells with him. He decided to filter the names through the criminal records. It took just a few moments and Andrew learnt that two of the men had been arrested; one for stealing and another for breaking and entering, but none of the men had any serious convictions. Andrew decided to take the list over to Chloe to see what she thought.

"Miss Driscoll, you know Jack is good at this type of thing, it's worth at least just giving him a chance-" Chloe attempted, but Driscoll cut her off.

"I know what he's good at. He's good at torturing people. And getting addicted to drugs. They aren't the sort of things we want associated with this office."

"Jack will be able to find out what we need, quicker than any other guy you've got here."

Before Driscoll could say anything else, Andrew Putney approached Chloe.

"I've got the fingerprint results back..."

Chloe muttered under her breath, "Perfect timing," and led Andrew away back to her station, leaving Driscoll without the ability to stop Jack from coming in to CTU.

_2. 40.20 p.m._

Ronnie Lobell had been filling out forms for the past hour and a half. After returning from the unsuccessful mission with James Simons, he had been allowed two hour off to relax, then at 11.30am he had been called in for a debrief. This had taken some time as it was a complicated situation to try to explain, especially as he was only one of the few people involved in several different missions revolving around the same operation. After one hour the debrief was over and he went to have a quick lunch. He had then been called back up to the Situation Room to fill out the relevant paper work regarding the mission, which was an unbelievably difficult task when he only knew half of the story. He had spent a long time calling other agents who he hoped would know more of the story, but he had been reasonably unsuccessful so far.

Suddenly, Erin Driscoll poked her head around the side of the door. He jumped, and she said, "Ronnie, I need you to do something for me."

"Hey, if it gets me out of doing this..."

"You know Ali? The prisoner we've got? I need you to try to get something out of him. Fast. Jack Bauer is on his way over here-"

"Bauer? What for?"

"He's planning to interrogate Ali. But I don't like the sound of it, personally. If you can get something out of him before Jack gets here, and do it without physical torture, then he won't be able to touch him."

"I'm on it," Ronnie concluded, and she moved out of his way so that he could exit the room.

Jack bolted down past the back of the houses. He was just a few blocks away from CTU. He glanced at his watch, and saw that it was nearing ten to three. Much past half way through the day. He almost missed the fallen-over trash can that he leapt over just in time, setting him off balance slightly. He slowed his pace as he neared a road. Crossing quickly, Jack upped his pace to its previous level and continued on his route to CTU.

David Palmer slumped down into a sofa in his apartment just after arriving back. He took a route through a park, looking at the beautiful flowers that were just coming into bloom. They made him smile, they reminded him of better days, but before long his mind was clouded over by the present, the horrible present, and he meandered back to his home. After flicking through the television channels and finding, as he expected, that nothing that interested him was on, he decided to try to call Keith's flat.

Unsurprisingly, no one picked up the phone and after ten rings – Palmer counted – the answer machine message came up. As he heard Keith's recorded message ask him to leave one of his own, he contemplated the idea of what he could say. The beep sounded, and all Palmer could do was breath down the line before putting the phone back into the receiver.

Ronnie shut the door of the interrogation room after he entered. Ali did not move or react; he had learnt that this was the best way to deal with things. Ronnie looked him up and down, measuring up the pain that Jack Bauer had already caused him. He saw the bandage around his foot, recalling the story he had heard relating to that.

He walked up to Ali and crouched down right in front of his face.

"What's going on?" He said slowly. Ali grimaced back at him.

Jack burst through the main doors at CTU and found Chloe waiting there to let him past Security.

"Jack!" Paul exclaimed, one of the veteran guards.

"Hey Paul," Jack said, remembering that he had known the man for almost as long as he had worked at CTU.

"Look Jack, there's something-" Jack left before Chloe could finish her sentence. "Jack, what's the rush?" She questioned.

"I've got a hunch things need to be moving faster than they are right now," he replied.

_2.55.28 p.m._

Jack slammed into the interrogation room. Ronnie Lobell stepped back, not knowing what to do. A look of fear erupted across Ali's face as he saw and recognised Jack from the intense interrogation he had given him earlier at the house. Jack smiled, pleased that he was recognised. It gave him the upper hand.

"Oh, I see you remember me," Jack said jokily, "I think we need another talk."

Ali gritted his teeth. "What more do I have to say to you? You stopped me; you stopped me and my men!"

"No," Jack said simply. Ali looked up at him, clearly confused. "Tell me about the rainforests."

Ali stuttered. "Wh... what rainforests? What are you talking ab-"

Jack looked back through the two-way mirror, fully knowing that Erin Driscoll was watching his every move. He then looked at Ronnie, who was sternly glaring at him. Jack spun back around to Ali. "Stop wasting my time." He whipped out his gun and shot above Ali's knee in less than a second. Blood sprayed upwards and shone in the light as Ronnie snapped the gun from Jack's hand and Driscoll bolted into the room, yelling, "What the hell do you think you are doing?"

Ali was yelling so loud Jack could barely hear Driscoll. He looked at Ali, deep into his eyes, and knew. He knew that Ali did not know anything about the rainforests, confirming Jack's worst fears. He turned to Driscoll, who seemed to have quietened, waiting to see what Jack had to say.

As Ali began to whimper, Jack said to Driscoll and Ronnie, "There's a separate threat against the President that is going down today."

_**3.00.00 p.m.**  
_


End file.
